Parents' Guide to

Mercy Street

By Melissa Camacho, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Soapy Civil War hospital drama has lots of blood, history.

TV PBS, Online Drama 2016
Mercy Street Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

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What's the Story?

Based on real events, MERCY STREET is a PBS original miniseries about an inexperienced New England nurse and ardent abolitionist working in the South during the Civil War. Mary Phinney (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), aka Baroness Von Olnhausen, left Boston after being widowed to nurse Union officers back to health. Sent to serve as the head nurse at Mansion House, an Alexandria luxury hotel that now serves as the area's Union Army Hospital, she must quickly adapt to the horrendous conditions while negotiating her place among Army doctors such as surgeon Byron Hale (Norbert Leo Butz), the more modern, civilian doctor Jedediah Foster (Josh Radnor), and the arrogant Nurse Anne Hastings (Tara Summers), who worked with Florence Nightingale in Crimea. Luckily, the kind chaplain, Henry Hopkins (Luke McFarlane), and laborer Samuel Diggs (McKinley Belcher III), a free man with a secret medical background, offer her support. As she works hard to keep going, she crosses paths with Emma Green (Hannah James), the naive adult daughter of the Southern loyalist hotel owner, who is struggling to find her place in the Union stronghold, which marks the beginning of an inevitably changing South.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say Not yet rated
Kids say (2):

This intense series, which is based on the real Mary Phinney's memoirs, shows how gritty life was in a Civil War hospital. Although the show is fictional, the stories based on Phinney's writings and other published memoirs of the era offer some insight into the way medicine was practiced at the time, as well as the way the turbulent political, economic, and social climate of the time affected the lives of those living in the Southern border town.

It takes on a soap-opera-like quality at times thanks to its extensive cast of characters and the way their past and present lives intersect. Adding to this is the vast mix of story lines, which range from doomed romances and spying to disturbing narratives about corrupt officers and lingering slavery practices. There's also lots of blood and gore thanks to the endless images of horribly injured and dying soldiers. But these scenes are offered in context and help create a loosely accurate -- albeit entertainingly polished -- portrayal of what doctors and volunteer nurses had to endure during this difficult time.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about what it was like to practice medicine during the Civil War era. What kinds of medical procedures and medicines were available at the time? Given how rudimentary they were at the time, how did people survive?

  • Television shows and films often use documented historical accounts to tell entertaining stories. How do you think media should represent people and past events? How many liberties can be taken with history?

TV Details

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