General Hospital (UK TV series) productions to fill in the extended schedules. Among the first of these shows, which were aimed at giving advertisers access to housewives, were the long-running rural soap "Emmerdale Farm" (YTV) and the twice-weekly medical drama "General Hospital". Set in a fictional Midlands town, the series followed the romantic and professional lives of its doctors and nurses. While the location and the characters names had been changed, in most other respects "General Hospital" was almost identical to its predecessor, "Emergency – Ward 10", a deliberate attempt to recreate its success. In 1975, after 270 twice-weekly episodes, "General Hospital" was given a
Mercy (TV series) score of 41 of 100 from the review aggregator Metacritic, and received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Matthew Gilbert, from "The Boston Globe", referred to the show as "a bunch of played-out hospital clichés" and said it "follows the hospital melodrama blueprint way too closely." Similarly, a review in "The Hollywood Reporter" calls the show "just another hospital soap opera" and "a lethal cocktail of virtually every medical drama ever seen on TV". Matt Roush of "TV Guide" wrote "Nurses deserve better than this ludicrous potboiler". Several critics have referred to "Mercy" as a weak copy of Showtime's "Nurse