American actors try their hand at history in PBS' 'Mercy Street'
When Josh Radnor makes his first appearance Sunday as a Civil War surgeon in PBS's new drama, Mercy Street, he will be trying to take down more than a gun-waving patient.
When Josh Radnor makes his first appearance Sunday as a Civil War surgeon in PBS's new drama, Mercy Street, he will be trying to take down more than a gun-waving patient.
At 10 p.m. on WHYY-TV12, viewers will hear, "Soldier, this is a place of peace and healing, not a place for guns," but what some may see, at least at first, is Radnor's How I Met Your Mother character, Ted Mosby, in an unironic beard and mustache, playing dress-up.
They should give him time. It's not easy being an American in a PBS drama. Most are made by the British, who are stingy with parts such as Jeremy Piven's Mr. Selfridge. Actors in the U.K. shuttle between contemporary sitcoms and costume dramas - when they're not crossing the pond to play Americans - but few of their projects have them working as the same character for 208 episodes, as Radnor did during Ted's nine-season search for his children's mother.
In the Virginia-filmed Mercy Street, the network's first American-based drama in more than a decade, he plays Dr. Jedediah Foster, a Southern-born physician trying to raise the standard of care for wounded soldiers on both sides of the conflict while dealing with some personal demons.
His won't be the only familiar face.
Others include Mary Elizabeth Winstead (The Returned) as New Englander Mary Phinney, the new head nurse in a Union hospital in Alexandria, Va.; Gary Cole (Veep), as James Green, a Confederate sympathizer whose family's hotel has been commandeered for the hospital; Peter Gerety (The Good Wife, The Wire) as Dr. Alfred Summers, the hospital chief; Shalita Grant (NCIS: New Orleans) as Aurelia Johnson, one of a number of former slaves navigating their still-tenuous freedom in a city under Union control; and AnnaSophia Robb (The Carrie Diaries) as Green's spoiled belle of a daughter, Alice.
In the years since Masterpiece presented its "American Collection," a series of ultra-respectful films commissioned for the show's 30th anniversary, followed by the terrific Tony Hillerman adaptations on Mystery!, PBS has loosened its corsets.
Downton Abbey, the period soap that changed the fortunes of Masterpiece, was a reminder that PBS viewers, too, like to laugh and cry and obsess about Lady Mary's eyebrows.
Mercy Street, whose producers include Ridley Scott and ER veteran David Zabel, is as middle-brow as Downton, rooted in genuine history and blending real and imagined characters in a medical drama that sometimes evokes Cinemax's The Knick and other times M*A*S*H.
Comic relief comes from Tara Summers (Boston Legal), who happens to be British, as Anne Hastings, a nurse who never lets her coworkers forget she worked with Florence Nightingale. Norbert Leo Butz (Bloodline) is Dr. Byron Hale, a mediocre surgeon who, when he's not sawing off limbs without anesthesia, can be found playing Frank to Anne's Hot Lips.
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.
Competing in a universe where TV plots that once would have taken a season are torn through in an hour or two, Mercy Street is probably right to keep the pot boiling.
It certainly hasn't hurt Downton Abbey.
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TV REVIEW
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Mercy Street
Premieres at 10 p.m. Sunday on WHYY-TV12
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Five American TV actors who should try different time periods
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ACTORS WHO SHOULD TIME TRAVEL
If Josh Radnor can go from the lovelorn hero of How I Met Your Mother to sideburned doc of Mercy Street, why can't other American actors make the leap into period pieces?
Julianna Margulies. The Good Wife lead is already so versatile she can do comedy and drama in the span of an hour. Save for a few roles here and there, Margulies' most memorable work is in the present.
She carries herself with so much grace and poise, though, we could easily see her rocking a corset. In fact, let the rest of her Good Wife cast members - especially Christine Baranski and former costar Josh Charles - follow her into the past.
Ted Danson. An iconic TV performer who so effortlessly disappeared into his role of Sheriff Hank Larsson in the recently wrapped second season of Fargo, Danson should try going even farther back in time. When he was a younger man, it was hard to separate Danson from his Cheers persona, but with age, he's gained a new gravitas that could serve him well.
Jim Parsons. The Big Bang Theory star has given so many layers to Sheldon Cooper - he didn't win four Emmys and a Golden Globe for nothing - that maybe it's time to apply his deft skills to a character of a different period. He's worked in many eras onstage (Valère in Tartuffe for one), so bringing a historical character to the screen shouldn't be that tough.
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Comedy Central's now-defunct sketch show Key & Peele was often a searing satire of racial relations in America. No reason they couldn't take that necessary, and hilarious, point of view into a completely new setting. - Molly EichelEndText