Shelley starred in the 1983 TV series Cutter to Houston. The title referred to the computer link (a groundbreaking innovation at the time) between a clinic in small town Cutter, Texas, and the Texas Medical Centre in Houston, Texas. Shelley played Dr. Beth Gilbert, an ambitious surgeon from San Francisco who wanted out of Cutter and had her eye on the big-city hospital in Houston. To prepare for her role, Shelley spent time with a woman surgeon, watched her perform operations and tried to find out as much as she could about being a doctor. And she found out that doctors need that protective wall between them and their patients to buffer the emotional impact that came with their profession. This Shelley told Leta Powell in an interview. "It is a medical show and it tries to deal with people's problems and people's fears, because we all have certain fears," said Shelley. "And we also try to have a light side to it too. I mean, we think we have some fun," Shelley added, "I mean the three of us (Shelley and her co-stars Jim Metzler and Alec Baldwin) certainly have a lot of fun doing it."
