Review: Show No "Mercy"

I'm not usually very critical about network television.  In the past, I watched what I liked and ignored what I didn't and that was that.  But now, since I've been away from television for about 4 months (my DTV converter box - yes! I have one of those - broke after 6 months, and I didn't get a new one till now; seriously don't buy anything from Apex), I've found I've become more critical of television.  Is it because I was so enamored, so brainwashed and entertained by it before that I didn't see its faults and only by walking away from it for a time did I see them?  Or were my expectations just raised way too high by its absence and subsequent return into my life?  Who knows.  Whatever the reason I've become a critic and as such, here is the first show I'm criticizing: 

Mercy (NBC, Wednesdays, 8pm PT)

The only reason I even watched this show is because I saw Taylor Schilling on the Today Show saying how great of a show it was.  It got me curious, so I tuned in.  Turns out Schilling is a great saleswoman.  The show - terrible.

Ok, maybe it's not terrible, but that is the word I remember thinking when watching this show.

I'll give it that since I saw Schilling in a dress and standing in heels looking like a model in her interview, it was really hard for me to believe that she was an Iraq war veteran, which is what she plays on the show.  Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, if the writers hadn't beat us down with allusions to the Iraq war so much throughout the show.  I thought the intro's allusion to the war, when she saves a man's life who's been in a car accident by jabbing him with a knife and sticking a straw through his torso, then tells his hysterically obnoxious companion she learned it in the Iraq war, was enough.  But I guess the writers feared you might miss the intro to the show, so they then had Veronica - who is actually a nurse, by the way, at Mercy Hospital - detail another way to save a patient, telling a coworker she learned it in the Iraq war.  If that wasn't enough, a handsome doctor (James Tupper) shows up in her life whom she happened to have an affair with, in guess where:  Iraq!  And then we learn from a little mishap in the hospital that caused a loud noise and made Veronica dive for cover, that's she's suffering from post-traumatic stress - from her tour - in Iraq.  Uh huh, yeah.  It seems like I wasn't the only one who didn't fully believe in Schilling's ability to pull off Iraq war veteran.  The writers don't either.  Why else would they keep mentioning it?  Either that, or they know nothing about Iraq, because the least they could have done is include examples with all those allusions.  You know, "A soldier I knew taught me this trick."  Actually, that would be enough.  You wouldn't even have to mention Iraq but once, and people would put the pieces together.  But I guess the writers don't expect the audience to be capable enough of doing that because they kept cramming "Iraq" down our throats. 

The other thing that pulled down the show, in my eyes, is that they focused way too much attention on Schilling's character.  I suppose she's the main character, but there's nothing really compelling to back up that argument except for her abundance of screen time.  There's just something missing from the character or from the writing, which doesn't make me root for her, which is what you need for a good protagonist.  If they had given more screen time to the other actors, and made it more of an ensemble type cast a la Grey's Anatomy, I think they would have pulled it off better.

And then, don't these writers know (I'm being really hard on the writers, but maybe it's not entirely their fault; it could be the people above them) that you're supposed to start in the middle of the action, not at the beginning.  They got that with the intro scene, which was compelling.  But it was all downhill from there.  Because then they got into Veronica's back story, her tour in Iraq, her drunk Irish family, her "horrible" marriage, her affair with a doctor, and on and on until you really don't care anymore.  It reminds me of those people who have no filter, who keep going on and on about their life when you first meet them.  Well, the thing is, when you first meet a person, you don't care about them.  You build up to that, and then when you care about them, that's when you wonder why they're the way they are and that's when you're curious to find out.  I think had they not revealed the whole Iraq war thing at all, had let her just smile when people asked her how she knew things, not said she met hot doc in Iraq, but just at a hospital, and let her be scared by loud noises, people would wonder about her, and that would have made for more compelling television.  "Mercy" didn't give us a chance to care before we found out, and now I really don't care.  Part of the mystique of the main character is wondering why they are the way they are.  If I know in the first episode, I don't care to keep watching.

Some reviewer liked the fast paced action of the show.  I didn't care for it.  I started to notice that each subsequent scene was getting cut pretty short, with nothing to show for it.  It was as if the writers (my bad, if it's not them) didn't have many ideas for what to include in this episode, so they packed it with a lot of unnecessary back story and then used the quick scenes to take up air time.

The particularly big "groan" moments for me:

When Veronica tells hot doctor that she's recommitting to her husband, and then he says that though he came for her, he has a two-year contract and he's going to stay.  And then she looks shocked!  Shocked!  Oh no!  You could just hear the writers typing out "PLOT TWIST" on this scene.  Dundundun.  What is she going to do with hot doctor around?  Oh no!  The least she could have done is have a more believable reaction.  Fear?  Sadness?  Happiness?  But shock?!  Really?  She's shocked that he's not just going to leave his new job just because of her?  Seriously, you need to take your ego down just notch there, girl...  Groan.

The other groan moment was when Veronica's friend, Sonia (Jamie Lee Kirchner), and her young police officer friend have a conversation walking to the elevator, in which Sonia sighs about the town and asks the officer if he knows that her brother's in a gang.  Interesting, since in the next line she says, he should know because he arrested him.  Uhhuh...  Then why did you ask him like he didn't know!  You must want the invisible audience around watching to know that you have a back story about a not-so-perfect brother that affects you and that should change the way they see you.  Mmhmm.  Enough with the back story!  Save it for later.  Sheesh!  Groan.

I know that this has been a really scathing critique.  In my defense, I guess I just expected better from the TV and the TV disappointed me, and I was trying to figure out why it disappointed me.

But, not to be totally negative, it wasn't all bad.  There were some good moments.  The intro with the straw, when the guy sucks out the air and is saved - pretty sweet.  The moment when her husband throws their engagement ring out the window and she cries that they're still paying for that, and the next scene finds them on the ground, digging around in the grass, at night, searching for the ring - pretty endearing.  Too bad it turns out to be a "horrible marriage".  Choosing between two "good"s is always more compelling than between a good and bad.

In my opinion, I don't think this show is going to last.  It's just not very good.  I mean, it's possible for the writing to improve and the episodes to get better, but from what I've seen, they've already revealed all their cards.  How do you go back from that?  It's possible, but they might need a miracle.