DVD Reviews

Mercy: The Complete Series - DVD Review

By Dana Rae Aug 17, 2010, 16:09 GMT

From the co-executive producer of Friday Night Lights comes the intense and heartfelt drama Mercy. Nurse Veronica Flanagan Callahan (Taylor Schilling, Dark Matter) has recently returned to her hospital job after a volatile tour in Iraq, and knows more about medicine than all of the residents combined. In order to navigate the domestic landmines of her personal and professional worlds, she’ll need the camaraderie of her fellow nurses Sonia Jimenez ...more

Mercy is a medical drama that was too short lived. Along with their other medical series Trauma, NBC canceled Mercy after the first season of episodes failed to maintain an audience. But if you like medical dramas, Mercy is a good one to pick up.

The show sees Nurse Veronica Callahan (Taylor Schilling) doing her job at Mercy Hospital set in New Jersey. She has come back from being a trauma nurse in Iraq and is a little too good sometimes.

She does procedures that might make you question…for instance she uses a chemical to stop the bleeding on a patient, which is something that would have been done in an emergency situation in combat. There is no need for her to do these things, but she does them anyway.

In fact, I just watched NBC’s other medical show, Trauma, and the two shows are very similar. I can’t help but compare the two. Medical professionals who had faced trauma themselves deal with trauma on a daily basis. They use somewhat rogue techniques and often get into trouble with their superiors. 

Schilling does a solid job in the role, but I never quite bought into her character, and since she is the leading lady that the show focuses on, I should have fallen in love with her. I only somewhat liked her. That being said, she deals with so much trauma on a daily basis that the love drama is also introduced (i.e. her personal life) and I found that a bit tetchy and over-done. 

She had come home to a relationship that is teetering on the brink of disaster and by that I mean falling-off-of-the-cliff and blowing-up-in-your-face kind of disaster. She cheated on her husband in Iraq and we all know the rule: what happens in the combat zone stays in the combat zone (kind of like Vegas), and the significant other should just suck it up and realize this.

However, the man she cheated on her husband with comes back to the same hospital Mercy to work and she has to deal with seeing him on a daily basis. Not good at all for the marriage. 

Dr. Chris Sands (James Tupper) is Veronica’s secret affair, and this comes to light as the episodes unfold. Mike Callahan (Diego Klattenhoff) is her estranged husband who spends most of the season trying to redeem himself for cheating on her while she was away. By episode 6, she tells Mike what happened in Iraq, and the couple is split again.

Another reason it is hard to like her character is because she didn’t just cheat on her husband while she was in Iraq. She had a heartfelt affair and might truly be in love with Chris (by the way, Tupper is now reportedly heading to Grey’s Anatomy).

The series is also saved by Veronica’s family – which is made-up of drunken Irish misfits, and add a ton of laughs to the series. There are serious character moments with the family as well (Veronica’s father discovers he is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s), but for the most part her family gives the series so much needed humor.

Other characters in the show are nurses Chloe Payne (Michele Trachetenberg), Sonia Jimenez (Jamie Lee Kirchner), and Angel Garcia (Guillermo Diaz). They are the reason to watch Mercy. They pick up the slack in the series and expand it into more of an ensemble cast rather than just extra characters to interact with Veronica.

I thought Diaz did an excellent job in his role of a male nurse surrounded by women nurses. He adds the humor to the nurses’ counter and I enjoyed his performances from episode to episode. 

Trachetenberg also adds some extra laugh and interest to the series thanks to her eager eyed Chloe who always tries to do the right thing, and then falls for the bad boy doctor Dr. Joe Briggs (James Van Der Beek).

Van Der Beek popped up towards the end of the season, and gave me a reason to stay interested in the series. It was starting to get a tad formulaic and boring for me, but Van Der Beek’s performance gave the series a boost thanks to him playing against the “nice guy” image he perfected early in his career with Dawson’s Creek.

In Mercy, Briggs is a complete jerk and Van Der Beek plays him to the hilt and seems to relish the opportunity to play someone who could give a flip about the nurses he sleeps with and the people he insults (think House but better looking).

All in all, Mercy is one of those shows that was canceled too early and will surely be long forgotten in the grand scheme of the small screen. There are so many medical dramas on these days that it is so hard to be competitive and build a fan base.

For those fans out there, Mercy bids a farewell, but all of the episodes can be enjoyed on DVD. If you didn’t catch the show on TV when it aired, now is your chance. Trauma and Drama, what could be better entertainment? Three stars for effort. 

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