SummaryProduced by Ridley Scott, the drama follows the lives of two Civil War nurses: Mary Phinney (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a New England widow working and Emma Green (Hannah James), a young southern belle, whose family's luxury Alexandria hotel has been turned into a Union Army hospital they both volunteer at.
Created By:Lisa Quijano Wolfinger, David Zabel
❮ Mercy Street
Season 1
Season Premiere:
Jan 17, 2016
Metascore
Generally Favorable
61
User score
Mixed or Average
5.5
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Season Episodes
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
47% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
53% Mixed
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Jan 14, 2016
100
The script occasionally wanders into “Gone With the Wind”-style melodrama, but is always rescued by excellent performances. Among the best of the bunch are James, Radnor and Winstead. Butz and Summers edge delightfully close to comic relief.
Jan 19, 2016
75
If you can get past the sermonizing, there maybe a story worth seeing here.
User score
Mixed or Average
41% Positive
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
24% Mixed
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
35% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
Feb 20, 2016
10
A very realistic renderering of problems that occurred during the Civil War. So relieving to see real acting instead of the usual reality yv which seems to be the only thing that exists theses days. Mary Eilabeth Winstead as Nurse Phinney is especially outstanding. Unfortunately, only one more episode left to go.
Jan 21, 2016
10
I loved the show. I thought the story-lines were very interesting and I want to know more. I thought the scenery and wardrobe was wonderful. I especially enjoyed the acting, I though it was the strength of the show.
Jan 15, 2016
70
It’s not so bloody to turn off viewers coming to it from lead-in “Downton Abbey,” but it’s also not so mercenary in its attempts to be compatible that it seems watered down.
Jan 21, 2016
60
Trying to do justice to the stories of abolitionists, freed slaves, Confederate sympathizers, wounded warriors, their harried healers, and history itself is probably a too-tall order for the six episodes PBS envisions as a first season. The series, though, isn't afraid to be entertaining, and it shouldn't have to be.
Jan 15, 2016
50
Its writers aren’t working at the same level [as Downton Abbey] when it comes to turning a phrase or developing a more than one-dimensional character. And the tone, a kind of perky gravity that sits well on the early-20th-century British gentry, is a more awkward fit in a story set in the midst of a war over slavery.
Jan 13, 2016
50
The cast in fact is terrific. (It also includes Norbert Leo Butz, Peter Gerety and AnnaSophia Robb.) A cramped, airless setting is the critical flaw here. Nothing comes to life--words, drama or most of all, characters.
Jan 14, 2016
40
The characters are one-dimensional, so that you essentially know who they are within a minute or less, not least of all the spoiled-belle Confederate volunteer Emma Green (Hannah James), who’s straight outta “Gone With the Wind.” And the story lines about patients are didactic, there simply to provide the writers with EZ-to-read lessons about race, war, and medical progress.
Jan 20, 2016
10
I particularly like the attention to historical details and yet captivating story lines. Great acting and writing. The sets are fabulous and the costumes gorgeous.
Jan 23, 2016
6
This is too weak a show to belong in Masterpiece. The Brits can get away with this yawner, but not the Americans. It just plods along with no interesting characters or plot development. Sort of like "The Knick" without steroids or good acting.
Feb 5, 2016
5
I gave this a 5 even though I didn't get through the entire first episode, simply too much bloody gore for me to sit back and enjoy the acting, history, or period pieces, looks well produced but after one leg amputation & enough blood being sloshed around to fill a swimming pool I decided this wasn't going to be the series for me.
Feb 26, 2016
3
We gave it three episodes because we wanted to like it. I believe there is absolutely wonderful fodder for a great series here. There's an abundant source of conflict, an interesting period in time, and lots of topics to explore (politics, war, courage, medicine, slavery, etc.). However, it comes across so very poorly. Every character seems to wear his/her particular thing on his sleeve and be somehow one-dimensional even when they are going to change at some later point. It is very clear what each and every person is going to "learn" as time goes by from the moment you meet the character. There were opportunities to fix this in writing, direction, acting, etc. but nobody seems to transcend the problems this material has. Or perhaps what they got was way way worse than we realize and they're all putting in a herculean effort to get it up to where it is.
Jan 18, 2016
3
What a disappointment. Watching "Mercy Street" I felt as though I had fallen into a history/medical/social course 101. The acting is just pedestrian as is the writing. Sadly disappointingly boring as I had looked forward to this period drama produced by PBS. I found nothing interesting in the premiere that would get me to watch episode 2.
