Mercy - Can We Get That Drink Now?

Network: NBC

Time: Wednesdays, 8:00-9:00pm

Cast: Taylor Schilling, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jaime Lee Kirchner, James Tupper, Diego Klattenhoff, Guillermo Diaz, James LeGros

Creator: Liz Heldon

Summary: With the cancellation of ER, NBC has decided that we need another medical show on television, so here it is.  Mercy follows three nurses who work at a hospital in Jersey City.  Each one of them has their baggage, of course, and the show tries to mix their personal lives with some medical miracles that might even impress Dr. House.

Review: Watching NBC struggle for quality programming is a constant source of amusement for me.  I feel like their strategy is to find a show that works and find a similar, but less good, version of it.  Mercy is no exception.  ABC found TV-ratings success with Grey's Anatomy, a soap opera-esque show about doctors (not to be confused with a medically focused show like ER).  NBC found Mercy, a soap opera-esque show about nurses.

If Grey's could spawn a slightly impaired clone, it would be Mercy.  Where the characters in Grey's are quirky in amusing ways (or at least they were when it started), the characters in Mercy are quirky in socially retarded ways.  The show focuses on three nurses.  There's Veronica, who was a nurse in Iraq and occasionally has these post traumatic flashbacks.  She's clearly not handling being back in the States too well.  Also, she had an affair with a doctor in Iraq who followed her back to New Jersey to be with her, only to have her reject him in favor of the husband she cheated on him with (hmm, shades of Meredith and Derek there).  Confused yet?  We're only getting started. 

There's also Sonia, who has some weeeeeeird view on relationships that I can only liken to Cristina Yang's view of them.  Sonia wants to find a man with money.  Instead, she falls for the cop who shows up in the ER with a wounded suspect.  She's sassy, with an attitude and a chip on her shoulder.

And there's Chloe, who's sweet and naive and really thinks she can make the world a better place, kind of like Izzie in the first season of Grey's (before they took her character, ran her through a blender, smashed her with a hammer and put her back together with the parts all looking funny).  She's played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who was my childhood idol as Harriet the Spy, and who was actually my main draw for watching this show.  And I have to admit... she doesn't deliver.  Out of all the nurses, none of whom I'm particularly wild about, Chloe annoys me the most.  She acts like she's never run into a difficult situation in her life before.  I know she's supposed to be from East Nowhere, Middle America, but come on.  She is just way too unrealistic.  At least Veronica and Sonia, for all their faults have a little bit of spunk.  Chloe just gets steamrolled by everyone.  And then she whines about it.

The guys are, for the moment, pretty unremarkable.  There's the pretty doctor who moved from California to New Jersey to be with Veronica.  Right now, his role seems to be confined to being the pretty doctor.  We'll see if he develops a character somewhere along the road.  There's Veronica's husband Mike, who is a struggling architect who's building their house.  Also, he and Veronica are trying to make their marriage work when she's, to put it quite simply, not putting in an effort.  Veronica has some brothers who I remember laughing at, but not much else.  Her parents are alcoholics, and she's not a big step away from it, which is more irritating than amusing.  It's one thing to have the characters drinking occasionally, like to unwind after a tough shift (for example, hanging out at the bar in Grey's after work sometimes).  It's another thing to go too far and have them just drink all the time, which Mercy was bordering on with Veronica's family.

Even the plot structure is pretty much a rip off of the early seasons of Grey's Anatomy (I only watched Grey's until season 3, so all my knowledge of that show is based on the early years).  There are three important medical cases, one for each nurse.  Somehow, these cases tie in with their personal life.  Like a formula.

I know I'm really ripping into this one, but it actually wasn't all bad.  There are certain aspects about Veronica and Sonia that I find intriguing, and I'm hoping to get to know a little more about them as the series goes on.  I am really interested in the idea of Veronica as a former military nurse.  I think that's an aspect of the show that hasn't been done before, and they could really run with it if they want to.  

I also really like that Veronica didn't get back together with the pretty doctor (Chris) when he moved to New Jersey.  I like that she's trying to make it work with her husband, and that the problems they're having aren't really related to the relationship she had with Chris.  They're more to do with Veronica's own issues after serving in Iraq.  I'm so sick of the shows where the main character throws away a perfectly good guy (or girl) for their "one true love."  I'm all for romance, but I'm sick of the predictability.  I'm glad Mercy is at least acting like they're going to be different.  We'll see if they doesn't do the Meredith-and-Derek-hooking-up-in-every-room-even-though-they're-not-together thing.

I'm going to give this one a shot, but I may drop off mid-season.   Life is too short to watch shows I don't like just so I can give them bad reviews.  For now:

Rating (this episode):
[1] Run in the other direction
[2] Don't bother

[3] Worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do
[4] Definitely try it out
[5] A total keeper