One of two intense medical dramas NBC introduced in the fall of 2009, "Mercy" had all the advantages its one-named rival "Trauma" did not. First, it had talent behind the scenes. Liz Heldens from "Friday Night Lights" created the show and led the writers, proving once again that the best way to dramatize the real world is to show it realistically"”ugliness and all. Second, it had attitude and guts to stay true to its revolutionary premise, the well-informed notion "that nurses remain [not only] more generous caregivers, but that they are more intuitively apt, smarter, more committed and as technically able as their [physician] superiors, with none of the accompanying arrogance." In a winner-take-all ER smackdown, you always would go all-in with the Mercy Hospital nurses. The main character, nurse Veronica Flanagan Callahan, has just returned from a tour in Iraq, where she clearly learned more in each day than the pompous, presumptuous doctors learned in all five years of medical school. Of course, Veronica gets neither the respect nor the reward she deserves, but "Mercy" dangles the possibility of true love as just recompense for Veronica's skill and compassion. Taylor Schilling plays Veronica with exactly the right balance of toughness and vulnerability, skillfully juxtaposing her consummate skill as a nurse with her intrepid ingenuousness in matters of the heart. If only "Mercy" had survived into a second season, all the tangled threads in the story might have come to their proper denouement. If only.

Intensely cerebral, narrated more or less in the style of a Latin American magic-realist novel which shows the conclusion before the story begins, "Damages" TV show strangely fulfills the immanent promise in cable television programming, appealing very strongly to what the poet Milton called "fit audience though few." "Damages" series'unmistakable style, sophistication, and subtle sizzle are spellbinding, and the writers have crafted heroes you love to love and villains you love to hate with a team of attorneys working both sides of the continental divide between good and evil. Unabashedly stealing its premise from the Bernie Madoff case, "Damages" asks and answers, "What if you were Madoff's antagonist?" Glenn Close plays Patty Hewes, the high-powered and equally high-priced attorney determined to bring down ponzi-schemer Louis Tobin, portrayed by Len Cariou. The word "perfect" appears in most critics' discussions of their performances. A New York Times reviewer aptly summarized, "It's impossible to overestimate how delicious Ms. Close is as this fiercely driven, mercurial and manipulative woman. " In a stroke of casting genius, the producers chose Lily Tomlin to quicken the character of Mrs. Tobin, long-suffering wife of the arch-villain; the audience remains in suspense about her true colors and motives, suspecting she may be "Damages'" answer to Lady Macbeth. Martin Short also stars as Tobin's family attorney.

When Rebecca Winstone goes looking for her missing son in Europe she enters into a web of intrigue and murder that takes her out of her comfort zone. As the body count begins to mount and foreign spies wind up dead, Rebecca finds she is in for a long ordeal. She breaks into a jewelry store to find security footage that may hold clues to her son's disappearance and sees the video tape of her son's abduction. Following a lead (a license plate number) takes her to France and the CIA. Worried mom Rebecca (Ashley Judd from Kiss The Girls, Double Jeopardy) is determined to find her son who disappeared while on summer internship over in Italy, is a former agent with the CIA. She uses her connections to help track down her son. Also starring are Cliff Curtis from Blow, The Piano as Dax Miller, a CIA agent, and Sean Bean from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and National Treasure is Paul Winstone, father of the young man who's gone missing.

"The Girl from Plainville" is a five-part television miniseries based on the true story of Michelle Carter, a teenager from Plainville, Massachusetts. The series follows the events leading up to the death of Conrad Roy, Michelle's boyfriend, who died by suicide in 2014. Michelle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging Conrad to take his own life through text messages and was sentenced to 15 months in jail.

Marti Perkins lost her scholarship to Lancer Universities law school and finds she must get one some other way. Cheerleading can provide just the financial boost for her pre-law schooling she needs in the way of a scholarship. Along the way she befriends the team cheerleading captain (Savannah Monroe) who becomes her roommate. Vanessa Lodge (played by Sharon Leal from Dreamgirls) is the cheerleaders coach who has high hopes of winning the national championship. Gail O'Grady (NYPD Blue) is Wanda Perkins, mother of Marti and an embarrassment to her daughter quite often with behavior more expectant of a young child. Marti Perkins is played by Aly Michalka (Easy A, Bandslam), a determined young woman who is wise beyond her years and dedicated to becoming an attorney at any cost. Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical, Aliens in the Attic) is coach of the cheerleading team Savannah Monroe and when Marti comes applies to join up realizes the able young woman is just what the team needs to get into and ultimately win the cheerleading finals. This comedy drama ultimately shows how dedication and hard work will pay off big time!

Cassie is a shy young girl of sixteen when she discovers she is a witch with powers yet to be discovered. She joins a Circle of witches in New Salem and finds it a competitive world indeed. Cassie is in love with a boy she meets called Adam who is Diana's boyfriend. Diana soon becomes Cassie's best friend so that complicates things a bit. And she now must deal with Faye, another witch. Their Secret Circle rules at the high school Cassie now attends and witches can be dangerous when they are angered. The Secret Circle of witches have been in power and ruling for three hundred years in New Salem and they will use their powers to do pretty much as they wish, including manipulating innocent students into doing their bidding. Can Cassie and her newfound powers of witchcraft be strong enough to lead this witches coven from danger or will they be harmed by the dark forces instigated by a few in the Secret Circle? When the evil Faye assumes power over the Circle she leads them into dangerous territory and even death for someone near to them all. And then the witch hunters arrive on the scene to complicate things even further.