screen captures from the Cutter to Houston pilot episode, 1983
Shelley's second foray into series TV was Cutter to Houston. It was about three young doctors from the world-famous Texas Medical Center in Houston who were recruited to run a small hospital in the fictional rural town of Cutter, Texas. Jim Metzler and Alec Baldwin played the other two doctors. Jim played idealistic GP Dr. Andy Fenton, who grew up in Cutter and is glad to be home. Alec played internist/ladies man Dr. Hal Wexler, who is getting through his probation, having been relegated to Cutter for being a little too fast and free with his prescriptions. And Shelley played Dr. Beth Gilbert, an ambitious surgeon on temporary assignment in Cutter and aspires to be a heart surgeon in Houston.
more screen captures from the Cutter to Houston pilot episode, 1983
To continue, Frank Bickum has stormed into the operating room of Cutter Community Hospital with a gun in hand and is threatening Beth. He doesn't trust her after she had amputated his arm to save his life at an oil rig accident in the past. Ginny, Franks wife, is experiencing complications in her pregnancy and is in need of an emergency C-section which Beth is about to perform. She tries to explain to Frank that she had no choice regarding his arm. He was pinned down, so she had to either amputate or leave him to die where he lay because the entire oil rig was about to blow up. She says that, similarly, Ginny need to undergo this operation or she is going to die. She then says that whatever he does, she will continue with this operation and turns her back on him and proceeds. Frank puts down the gun.
