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Critic Reviews
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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.
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It’s fairly sturdy and convincingly gruesome in terms of showing a variety of battle wounds. It’s also predictable and oftentimes stilted, with the dialogue regularly preachy.
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Unfortunately the storytelling lacks subtlety. The good and evil characters are too starkly one or the other. The camera tends to flag ideas or objects in advance and make points too obviously.
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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.
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Mercy Street hugs the middle of the road so steadfastly, it makes “Call the Midwife” look like something by David Lynch.
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Mercy Street is mostly just mediocre, not awful. It’s busy enough--and has an unusual enough premise--not to be boring.... [But] The costumes get bloody; the characters stay bloodless.
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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.
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It's stubbornly bland, except in moments of primitive triage so graphic you may beg for mercy. [18-31 Jan 2016, p.15]
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Mercy Street’s problem is an ineffable lack of cohesion and oomph. The blood is spilling, but the heart’s not pumping.
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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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 21 out of 43
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Mixed: 9 out of 43
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Negative: 13 out of 43
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Jan 24, 2016
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Jan 18, 2016
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Jan 19, 2016