A Man. And His Blog.

Well, it was a good episode. Until Haylen (Maria del Mar) and Grote (Joe Morton) kissed, where I wondered where that romantic plot was coming from all of a sudden. But the I realized those last five minutes were written to finish the series. After all, Haylen and Grote are on their way to Earth, and C.J. (Brian McNamara) and Dru (Alexandra Wilson) are on their way to that new-found planet. And all of it in a shiny light and in a form of a happy end, which really looked like a season or series finale. Obviously, the writers back then knew that their show was dead and changed the last minutes because of it. Very nice.

But not without hiccups. Because I really don’t know where that romantic plot was coming from. I didn’t even expect for Grote and Haylen to make out and say “I love you” to each other in a million years. But just because Grote talked to his father and realized the meaning of life, it does mean he realized his never shown love and affection to Haylen? Well, obviously it did, but boy, did it come from nowhere. At least C.J.’s part was somewhat prepared in this episode – how he talked to find a new planet and step foot on it as the first human (how he said that “as the first human”, not as the first living, breathing, intelligent life form). But even here I didn’t expect for him to find his hidden love for Dru and basically neglecting the relationship he had with Kim (Salli Richardson). That brings me to wonder where that plot was. After all, a couple of episodes ago, they were still into each other, and nothing should have changed, after C.J. was almost dying in the last episode. Or better: It wasn’t shown that C.J. and Kim were ending things, instead we (and Kim) just saw how C.J. affected on Dru.

The medical cases were okay. Nice that Cook (Gay Thomas-Wilson) had something to do in the last episode, though the nightmare story involving Sarina (Nancy Sivak) was not really the burner. Completely ridiculous was the conclusion (lack of gravity, because her apartment had a leak – ridiculously horrendous), but I blame that to the series finale. Maybe the conclusion of this story was affected by the cancellation as well, and the writers needed a different – more happy-end-ish – outcome here. Edmund’s (Lennie Loftin) story was kinda interesting though. I liked the whole transformation thing, and how C.J. was thinking that Edmund saw God, and definitely found that Earth-like planet. But the second half of the story was seriously questionable. All of it was mystery, miracles, and unanswered questions, which could have only been answered with “God’s ways”. And I don’t like shit like that. But obviously that story was only there to make C.J. dream of discovering planets, and firing up his new career. Well…

One question: Edmund was obviously far far away, and it took him less than three years. Was his ship so damn fast that he could travel that far in less than three years, and then back to Mercy Point? Somehow there’s no inconsistency here – another thing I didn’t like. But at the end it was a good finale. And it was a real finale, ladies and germs. For those, who are looking for TV shows without open endings and cliffhangers. And for those, who can actually find this show. I can’t help you here, because I just watched a German dubbing here… 7/10

OMG, a play toy! But what can Batung do with it?

OMG, a happy end! Where did that come from?

Another good episode. Now I’m a bit sad that the series never survived and had the chance to live for more than just seven episodes. Not that I will miss this show at the end, but somehow it was more interesting than I was expecting.

Okay, the episode wasn’t the burner, but I liked that the writers used the cliffhanger from last episode (which was expectedly concluded in a shitty way) for a nice story, when the doctors were fighting for C.J.’s (Brian McNamara) life. And fortunately there was a real threat behind it all. Just because he was out in the vacuum for less than ten seconds, almost everything in his body gut crushed, and it took almost a full day to recover him. Despite the pretty shitty way of letting Batung (Jordan Lund) partly saves his life with his mystical shit, it was a nice story. But I didn’t quite understand the manipulating of the DNA. Grote (Joe Morton) said it would take hours to find the frequency (what frequency?), but Dru (Alexandra Wilson) did it in five minutes – explanations were missing. Same goes with how Bortok’s (Zachary Ansley) point of view wasn’t followed any more. After he told Grote about what he has done, he was completely gone from the episode, and the whole alien-killer story was over all of a sudden. Here I really would have expected a lot more.

Dru’s case with Val (Olivia Burnette) was okay. I liked the radical detox part, and the fact that there are “drugs” out there in the future, which pretty much suck up your life, but I didn’t like that the illegal procedure had absolutely no bad outcome for Dru. And it seemed like only Haylen (Maria del Mar) knew about the illegal procedure at the end. So the story pretty much had a terrible final act, when it was presented with all illegal and dangerous stuff, but everything was happily ever after at the end. Dru and Haylen hug it out, Val is somewhat rescued, and her mother started to car for her daughter. Not an ending I liked very much.

Grote’s patient Whitney (Glenn Morshower) was “confusing”. There really is a sickness like homesickness, which actually kills you? I watched this episode with a German dubbing, so I don’t know what the English vocabulary for the sickness was, but what I got was pretty much… shitty, like the end of the world. It could have been a simple disease Whitney could have got during his gold search. But I liked the emotional side of the story, with Grote telling Whitney that he has up to ten days left to live, and Whitney’s last talk with his wife back home on Earth. Very touching. At least we know it takes around three weeks with a shuttle from Mercy Point to Earth. Nice little background info, just nobody needs it.

What I noticed was that this episode could have been the last one for some of the eventual quitters in the cast: C.J. could have died here, making his goodbye, Batung could have left Mercy Point, because his race was calling for him, and Dru was actually quitting after the whole detox incident. I always notice these things: There are always storylines for most of the characters in the beginning of a show, which would explain an early exit of the characters and their actors. MERCY POINT had that “twist” too. Only nobody is quitting the show. Well, they should have, since there is only one episode left… 7/10

Hello special effects

Love and affection on the sickbed

Whoa, this episode ended on a cliffhanger. How unexpected was that? Other than that, the episode was surprisingly good. How unexpected was that? And how many small plot holes was I actually counting, where I wondered if I have watched too many legal dramas to consider the IGA plot pretty idiotic.

The hunt for the alien killer was actually interesting. It reminded me of the death angel story during the eighth ER season (the thing is just that MERCY POINT came with this story first), and I liked it already back then. But it would have been more interesting to prepare this story beforehand and not let it fire up that wildly in this episode. Like Grote (Joe Morton) said, normally they would lose five, six aliens per year (WTF?), and now they have lost six in six months. It could have been mentioned earlier, and Grote could have been unsure about the situation earlier. This way it looks like the writers needed a story, and they needed every element of it to make it count in only one episode.

I was somewhat entertained during the IGA investigation, and the race discussion was pretty interesting, because it was fitting to the setting of the show. I always wanted to have a movie or a show depicting the race separation between human and non-humans, and what MERCY POINT did here seemed completely interesting. But I was annoyed about the way the investigation was handled. First I was believing that the IGA found in Grote the murderer, without even looking harder, and second I was believing to see a plot hole: When it was so easy for C.J. (Brian McNamara) and Haylen (Maria del Mar) to investigate the ordering of the alien drug, why wasn’t it noticed/done sooner? Even the IGA could have investigated in this direction, and they wouldn’t have even needed the passwords and stuff. It seemed pretty illogical that Bortok (Zachary Ansley) could have kept his secret so long, and now that he kills two aliens in the same day (when he needed six months to kill only six), he is basically found out. And just because he was running. Well, at least it brought the nice cliffhanger, though I’m not expecting a thrilling way out of it. Okay, C.J. could actually die in outer space, making it more emotional and dramatic for all his colleagues left behind, but I don’t believe C.J. would die so easily.

The other medical case of Joanne (Fay Masterson) had her losing her eye sight was partly interesting. It was without a doubt an emotional case, but it got lost within the whole IGA investigation. It would have been great to have more interactions between C.J. and Dru, since Joanne was connecting them too. At least the medical story was interesting enough to not bore me. Only the outcome should have been more dramatized. What was I stunned, when it seemed that Joanne lost her eye sight permanently, but then it was just the waiting for the punchline. It would have been a great ending to a slightly dramatic plot, when Joanne would have lost her eye sight… 7.5/10

Monsters get treatment too

It's a literal Queen Bee

Another solid episode, which again surprised me how the writers handled the stories back then. And again, the science fiction part doesn’t work. I think I’m writing the same stuff for the remaining three episodes as well, though it’s really interesting how well the stories are, but how crappy they shine in the light of the science fiction genre.

The story with Nash (Allen Cutler) seemed interesting. First he was just a normal patient, until it was revealed he has another consciousness in his brain. Though this was the science fiction part I didn’t like, I liked that there was a bigger story behind it. So, the second consciousness was that of Dr. Warren, who decided to take Nash’s body to continue his science. I liked the conflict between Warren and Grote (Joe Morton), and how Grote tried to save Nash, while Warren was basically the reason for Nash’s body aging and dying. The reasons for Warren’s actions and Nash’s decision were acceptable, and there was enough drama in the story to remember it for these reasons. But I really don’t know why I always don’t like the science fiction part of the drama. Maybe it really was not a good idea at all to connect both the medical genre with science fiction. Especially since the idea seems to insist on crazy illnesses, which are explained by deus ex machinas, as well as patients with illogical diseases or wounds, who get treated in an illogical way, which is logic for the genre part though. Let’s just take the scene, in which Nash makes place for Warren. That reminded me of all the schizophrenic characters in television, and it really looked ridiculous how Warren “awoke” in Nash’s body.

The rest of the episode was okay. The only rememberable part was the conflict between Haylen (Maria del Mar) and Dru (Alexandra Wilson) anyway. Though I don’t understand why Haylen still has problems with Dru’s way of working, I love that the writers really push on that conflict to come out eventually. And finally we learned something about Dru’s past, even though the information C.J. (Brian McNamara) gave Kim (Salli Richardson) were only squishy at best, but there could have been hope for the writers to build on Dru’s past and making it a problem in the present with her sister and all her colleagues. Only the story with Dru failing to treat Kevin (Devin Douglas Drewitz) was a bit ridiculous though. When Kevin doesn’t tell Dru what’s wrong with her, why should Haylen blame her for that then?

At the end, Batung (Jordan Lund) got the boring story again, and had the chance to play out his alien magic. It was a laughable scene, when he called the ritual an “operation”, and how easy it seemed to heal Tanazi (Lyle Kanouse). Sorry, but mixing ancient/native rituals with a medical drama in the science fiction genre… That does work less than the whole thing without the ritual. The only cool thing about it was ANI (Julia Pennington) and her offensive flirting with Tanazi’s son. Looks like ANI is evolving. But since that shouldn’t be possible, I wonder why no one is wondering about her evolving… 7/10

Treating patients, checking time: Dru is multitasking

It's the first hologram of the series

It was another solid episode, and I’m still surprised that the writers continued to tell emotion-laden storylines. Even though I still have a problem with the sci-fi setting, and do not wonder anymore why the series failed back in 1998, I’m stunned that the show is not really the “worst television show in the TV season 1998/1999″. No, the creators just missed how spectacularly bad the idea was of connecting a dramatic medical genre with the science-fiction genre, aliens and similar.

Unfortunately, only the main story was really interesting. Especially since it was the only story, which got all the attention of the writers and the characters, and the rest was just a minor story arc, completely forgettable. I liked the conflict between Trevor Kelly (Michael O’Neill) and both DeMilla (Joe Spano) and Grote (Joe Morton), because he wanted to have the best treatment for his son. I loved the conflict between Grote and everybody else, who didn’t want to lose his own patient because of it. And I loved the subject matter of the story – ending one (alien) life to save another (human) life, and how it eventually affected Grote, since he had a similar past with his father. Very touching, and very surprising as well, when the twist was delivered. I didn’t expect for Gilles to survive the transfusion and Clayton to die, though the experiment should have saved Clayton’s life. I loved all the scenes between Grote telling Gilles about the experiment, and letting him decide to save a human life and for himself to die, until the moment, when Gilles told Clayton’s parents that it was the best ending Clayton could have ever gotten in his life. Only Trevor’s over-the-top aggressiveness during the first act was a bit too much. Here, he was the rich guy, who could pull all the personal files of Mercy Point, and thought he could threaten everybody, just so that his son can be saved. Those kind of characters are dicks, and despite the final emotional touch of the story, I don’t like those kind of characters in TV shows – whether it was intentional by the writers or not.

But the rest of the episode was seriously boring. Somehow I think the writers are pressing too much into the C.J. (Brian McNamara)/Dru (Alexandra Wilson) past, and letting his relationship with Kim (Salli Richardson) suck balls (seriously, he tells her all the time it’s over and history between him and Dru, and yet he says she was the last one he wanted to see in Mercy Point – that’s definitely not over between them). The “boner” story was ridiculous, and having ANI (Julia Pennington) feel something about one of the medical cases seems interesting, but I don’t think that the writers planned very much ahead in letting ANI feel. Apart from the question if anybody else noticed that ANI felt something about the fate of one of the patients, even though she should not have any emotions at all.

Well, there’s nothing more to say. What a shame that I seem to be one of the three persons this year, who’s watching this show. It’s actually good… if you get over the sci-fi-setting. 6.5/10

It's one of those happy moments for Dru

Clayton is ready for death

A pretty interesting episode, considering its cancellation after the next one, and especially since the series didn’t get rave reviews back then. But what really surprised me here is that the writers went into the storylines in an authentic manner. The characters were questioning the moral, therefore giving the audience something to think about, and the stories were good enough to really be considered the “ER in Space”. Only the science fiction elements are a bit ridiculous.

And this in both medical cases. In one occasion, we’re getting future technology of downloading memories from an almost-dead person, and on another occasion, it’s actually possible to freeze a person (so that the life-saving operation can be planned better), and it’s even possible to unfreeze the person within a second. I don’t know what to think of it, and now I understand why the series didn’t work with the audience. Between the realistic medical cases and how the writers were working with it, and the future stuff set in the 23rd Century, MERCY POINT looks kinda ridiculous – the mix won’t really fit. At least the stories were good.

I loved how the conflict between Haylen (Maria del Mar) and Charles Bantam (Larry Cedar) about the downloading of memories, to figure out who’s guilty of the space accident. I even liked the little plot of the procedure being dangerous for Julie, or how it affects the brain functions (the patient seeing the memory download as a déjà vu, which in fact creates tension in the patient’s mind, even in coma). Nice that Haylen got such a story and was fighting for the patient, while the writers were even able to create tension between the characters – here between Haylen and Bantam. And that guy really was a dick, though he was actually right about his point of view. After all, nobody knew why the accident happened and Bantam saw the chance of saving some more lives, when he learned what happened. But of course, at the end Julie was actually the hero and totally innocent about the accident, and it was the dead pilot, who carried the guilt.

The freeze operation was a bit boring though. It wasn’t thrilling, it wasn’t dramatic, and it was somewhat … comical. I don’t know if it was because of the chemistry between Grote (Joe Morton) and C.J. (Brian McNamara) or if there was actually not a story to be found. Anyway, the story couldn’t grab me, and the sequence where the patient was defrosted, just to start screaming half a second later (and stopping another five seconds later) was just intentionally funny. This was a moment, where I realized why MERCY POINT flopped, and when I realized that the show might have been better suited in the present time. But then it would have been a simple medical drama, right?

Finally, there would be Batung’s (Jordan Lund) story with Nancy Curtis (Lisa Darr) and how she hated that piece of alien doctor, because he wasn’t “human” enough. Or simply couldn’t understand why she hated him for his behavior of telling her that she just lost her legs. Batung kinda is the comic relief for the series with his sometimes cocky, sometimes not understandable behavior, since he is an alien. But I would have wished for a bit more … unpredictability in his story. It was a Greenland-sized cliché to hear Batung apologizing to Nancy, and I was smelling it from ten miles away. Even though the drama was necessary to develop Batung for at least a bit (I can’t imagine him having loads of stories in the next five episodes), but it could have been more surprising.

All in all, it was a good episode. But I have my difficulties to become acquainted with the science-fiction-part of the show. I was already laughing numeros times during STAR TREK, when I saw the future technology, but even here it’s ridiculous. 7/10

The new wristwatch is excellent in telling time

Working on a frozen popsicle is a cold job

Maybe almost everybody on this godforsaken planet has forgotten all about this little gem of a science fiction show, which is why I decided to put some reviews of it up. Thanks to the fact that there are only seven episodes, and thanks to some terrific uploader, who put them up on the net. Even though it’s dubbed in German and in a bad quality. And I can say for myself that MERCY POINT is the first television show since the twelfth season of ER, which I’ve watched in a German dubbing. It kinda seems surreal now to listen to a language I mostly don’t talk anymore, especially when the lip movements tell me something else.

Okay, now to the pilot. And since nobody will probably see this show ever again, I have quite a bit to write about. Firs off: It was a really good pilot. Great storytelling, which makes the series bearable in today’s times; the cast is great, especially Maria del Mar who gets everything out of her conflict with her TV sister; and the stories were heavy of medical elements, which made me quite happy – since I’m a fan of the genre. With it, the actual medical cases were good, even though the virus thing was ridiculous at some points.

It really is a question of credibility, when the writers give me a computer virus, which transported its data into organic cells, and made it the reason for a little virus breakout on the space station. I could have believed that the computers would have somehow created a virus within the patient’s body (similar to how WiFi could theoretically mess up your cells and give you cancer, even though it’s not true), but actually making the computer virus the culprit, and the doctors creating an antidote against the computer virus, made the story really horrendous in the fourth act. But at the end, it somehow had a good ending, because nobody actually knew how it was possible for a computer virus to infect some brains on a military base – at the end, the virus was a complete mysterious for the doctors. I just didn’t like how our main hero Grote (Joe Morton), and yeah, that really is his name, got to figure out that it was in fact a computer virus. But hey, at least the writers thought of affecting the actual computers on the space station, and not just the parents – though this part of the story could have been more developed in the pilot.

The other little stories were okay. The birth was alright, but I couldn’t get the artificial womb the fetus was in, and that both the fetus and the mother-to-be were able to feel and hear each other, just because they were artificially connected. At the end, I remembered this story because it had some emotions in it, especially with Haylen treating the parents-to-be in a way of caring, but I don’t believe I will remember this storyline for the way of how the fetus’ life was saved.

The character work was great though. Grote gets a couple of points in character development at the end of the episode; C.J. (Brian McNamara) gets points for his womanizing appearance and his makeout-session with Kim (Salli Richardson); and the explosive relationship between Haylen and Dru (Alexandra Wilson) gets all the other points, because it was the most interesting story of the pilot. Though riddled with clichés, I liked the “chemistry” between the two sisters, and how it could eventually affect their work on the space station. I really hope the next six episodes are going to build on that hate/hate-relationship and doesn’t turn out to be a story about accepting family in a stressful working environment. The fact that both actresses did a terrific job in portraying sisters, makes the story more believable and the characters more likable. I’m really hoping this is going to hold up.

But at the end I still have one big fat problem with MERCY POINT: Why is it situated on a space station? Since the episode only had establishing space scenes, I was never able to buy into the series arc and believe that everything happens on a space station. The claustrophobic feeling wasn’t in the episode; the feel of being “somewhere on the other side of the universe” was missing; and the science fiction genre itself couldn’t live through the episode, because the themes of the genre weren’t developed clearly in this show. We have a creepy alien nurse, and a bossy alien doctor, some talks about alien viruses, but that was all of it. MERCY POINT could have been situated on a strange moon or planet instead, or it just could have been some awkward future hospital on Earth. The writers didn’t even use the setting for the pilot… 7.5/10

Birth in space: not so easy as it looks

The android nurse has some troubles with her eyes