TVSquad

Hey, have you seen any promos for Mercy on NBC lately? It's like they forgot the show was premiering in just a couple weeks. Usually the marketing machine is running into overdrive right about now.

For those who may be planning a volley of comments about how stupid I am, please note that the preceding paragraph is dripping with sarcasm. If you can't see it, perhaps you don't have the right fonts loaded. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. If you have seen the promos, I'll bet you haven't seen Captain Janeway prowling around the hospital halls, have you?

That's because Kate Mulgrew just joined the cast of Mercy. She'll be playing the mother of main character Veronica, played by Taylor Schilling. Mercy's already been getting some good buzz, and you just know NBC is looking for their next ER. Could Mercy be it? Or better yet, their Grey's Anatomy? It already appears to have a more personal slant, if Mulgrew's addition means anything.

(S04E13) "Denny Crane, to serve and protect" - Denny Crane

Only a couple minutes into the show and the crazy meter is off the charts. Nutjob Leigh is threatening Katie. Denny is having anonymous sex with Shirley's friend and I'm having a Murphy Brown flashback.

I've lost a lot of respect for Jerry. What could possibly compel him to get involved with Leigh again other than his being a pitiful loser? It seemed like he was making progress for a while there. Doesn't he know that a woman who leaves you once is very likely to leave you again? I just hope he never takes her on a date to an electronics expo.

(S07E21)  Yes once again, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for another SVU episode that involves children. It is the type of episode that makes you want to lock your children in a safe room until they are 30-years-old and a 12th-level black belt. Now that I have four children of my own I always get that creeping feeling up my spine when I see these episodes. Oh well, let's move along, shall we?

All in all it was a solid but dull episode with the main focal point on Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and his sexual abuse investigation of a 8-year-old boy. And, with the limited appearance of Detective Olivia Benson (the very pregnant Mariska Hargitay), who has moved into the Computer Crimes division, some of the secondary characters had meatier roles than normal. Namely, Detective Tutola (Ice-T), Dr. Huang (B.D. Wong) and Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU, the tech geeks) Morales (Joel De la Fuente), who actually beat up a perp in this episode. See? Don't mess around with us pencil-neck geeks: we're super-humanly strong.