Mercy Point is an American science fiction medical drama, created by Trey Callaway, David Simkins, and Milo Frank, which originally aired for one season on United Paramount Network (UPN) from October 6, 1998, to July 15, 1999.

Despite Callaway envisioning Mercy Point as a companion to Star Trek: Voyager, it was paired with Moesha and Clueless as its lead-in on Tuesday nights.

Initially focused on ethical and medical cases, the show's storylines gradually shifted toward relating the characters' personal relationships, to better fit UPN's primarily teen viewership.

Mercy Point was placed on hiatus after only three episodes were aired, and was replaced by the reality television series America's Greatest Pets and the sitcom Reunited.

[10] According to a press release from UPN, the series features the characters' attempts to "balanc[e] complicated personal lives with the demands of working in a cutting-edge hospital".

[1][3][11] Dru Breslaur (Alexandra Wilson) begins working at the hospital in the pilot episode, creating tension because of her strained relationship with her older sister Haylen, and her past romance with Dr. C. J. Jurado (Brian McNamara).

[3][4] Jurado is characterized through his high libido,[3] with his story arc involving a love triangle with Dru and his current girlfriend Lieutenant Kim Salisaw (Salli Richardson).

[3] The android head nurse ANI (Julia Pennington) and the alien surgeon Dr. Batung (Jordan Lund) also help to combat the frequent medical emergencies at the hospital.

[3][11] Created by Trey Callaway, David Simkins, and Milo Frank, Mercy Point was originally developed as a concept for a feature film.

John de Lancie, who was noted for acting as Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation, had essayed the role of DeMilla, and Steve Johnson designed the non-humanoid aliens.

[14] The show's production was part of a three-million-dollar deal with Columbia TriStar Television to produce 200 hours of material; a majority of the content created from this agreement was commercially unsuccessful.

Batung's prosthetic work included a tail that wrapped around his neck and shoulders; Lund was pushed around the set on a sled to mimic the character's movements as a slug.

Hayden would have continued to deal with feelings of "homesickness", which is defined as "a crippling interstellar condition unique to humans that ultimately linked their survival to returning to Earth" in the context of the show.

Batung would have suffered consequences for rejecting "the protective fold of his species", and ANI would develop an antidote for a virus that spread from computers to humans in the pilot episode.

Scott D. Pierce of Deseret News described the network's choice of two science-fiction dramas and two 19th century programs (The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer and Legacy) as showing "a definite bent toward the unusual".

[20] Entertainment Weekly's Dan Snierson noted that Mercy Point faced tough competition from other shows in the same time slot, primarily Just Shoot Me!, Spin City, and Felicity.

[22] The show ranked number 157 based on the Nielsen Media Research's survey of programs airing from September 21, 1998, to May 26, 1999, with an average of two million viewers.

[4] The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Joanne Weintraub favorably compared the show to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, writing that "both series take their special effects seriously and their often tongue-in-cheek dialogue lightly".

[30] The Los Angeles Times' Howard Rosenberg criticized the show's reliance on its science-fiction context and technology to distract the viewers from "its mustiness and lack of originality".

[1] Lee Sandlin of The Chicago Reader included Mercy Point in his assessment of the worst television shows in the 1998–1999 season, criticizing its lack of originality and poor writing.

[31] The series was heavily panned by Kevin Wagner of the science-fiction online magazine The Sci-Fi Guys, who found the pilot's story arc to be uninteresting and the use of rubber gloves as a way for advanced containment to be unrealistic.

[15] The Sun-Sentinel's Hal Boedeker cited Mercy Point and The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer as "misbegotten fare" that alienated its audience and lowered viewership by forty percent.

The show was described as reminiscent of a Saturday Night Live skit "that sounded brighter on paper than it plays on the air" by The Sun-Sentinel's Tom Jicha, who felt it served as a spoof of ER.

[33] Editor Jason Snell criticized the show as a retread of Crisis Center and General Hospital, describing it as an "utter waste of an intriguing premise",[34] and The Chicago Tribune's Steve Johnson called it the "ER-in-space mess".