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Grey's Anatomy

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This article is about the television series. For the anatomy textbook, see Gray's Anatomy. For the Spalding Gray film, see Gray's Anatomy (1996 film).
Grey's Anatomy is an award-winning and popular American primetime television medical drama. The pilot episode aired on ABC on March 27, 2005. The story revolves around Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), a surgical intern at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital in Seattle, Washington. The show features an ensemble cast, but Meredith is featured as the main character, with a voice-over narration at the beginning and end of most episodes.

The title of the show, spelled with an "e", recalls the title of the famous anatomy textbook, Gray's Anatomy.

Contents

Cast and characters

The characters of the series include a group of surgical interns, the various physicians who serve as mentors to the interns, and additional people in their professional and personal lives.

The show has been lauded for its non-traditional cast. The show's producers pride themselves on the fact that they used a "blind-casting" technique. "Blind-casting" means that the producers did not assign a specific race to each character before casting, they simply chose the best actor/actress for the part, and race was not a determining factor. The cast includes several African-American actors (Chandra Wilson, Isaiah Washington and James Pickens, Jr.) an Asian-Canadian actress (Sandra Oh), and a Latina actress (Sara Ramirez) in heavily featured roles. The Emerald City Bar's proprietor, Joe (Steven W. Bailey) is a gay man. His large-sized frame is a departure from how gay men are usually portrayed on television.

Criticism, praise & media coverage

Grey's Anatomy, despite its popularity, has its share of detractors. The show has been widely criticized by various groups, many of them medical, for inaccurately presenting medical situations and greatly exaggerating the degree to which doctors and medical professionals fraternize with one another. [link] A Resident's Review, May 9, 2005, Chronicles of a Medical Mad House In particular, the show was initially targeted as showing a disrespect for nurses (several lines of dialogue had doctors referring to nurses in sarcastic or belitting ways; in the pilot episode, Meredith is offended when Alex thinks she is "just" a nurse.) The creator defended this line saying that it shows what would be offensive to a surgeon and that in the scenes after it is seen that the nurses know more than the new interns.

Grey's Anatomy has also been accused as a direct ripoff of the NBC series Scrubs. In episode 11 of Season 5, "My Buddy's Booty", main charactor John Dorian, or JD, exclaims (in reference to Grey's Anatomy), "Oh, I love that show. It's like they took our lives and put them on TV," an obvious dig at the seemingly more popular show.[[Citing sources citation needed]]

However, supporters of the show have defended its lack of realism, claiming that a dry, precise medical show would lack the charms [link] TV Squad Review: "Into You Like a Train", October 30, 2005, TV Squad that make Grey's Anatomy so popular with its wide audience and pointing out that very few TV programs — including ones purporting to be far more serious — hew strictly to realism.

Supporters likewise claim that the purpose of the hospital setting is to provide a dramatic backdrop that allows for the characters to be put into emotionally and physically intense situations that would rarely occur in other circumstances and settings. In this sense, Grey's Anatomy is similar to many other television shows in using larger-than-life scenarios (occasionally veering into magic realism) in each episode to metaphorically express emotions that every person, no matter how mundane or fantastic his or her life may be, goes through. Grey's Anatomy bends fact to fit its mixture of romantic comedy and serious character drama, while avoiding the campy or the surreal.

In 2005, ABC gave the hit show a vote of confidence by announcing that Grey's Anatomy would receive the coveted post-Super Bowl time slot which aired on February 5, 2006[link] "'Anatomy' Lesson Follows on Superbowl" Zap2It, October 31, 2005. The cliffhanger received record-high ratings, which carried over into its follow-up episode and propelled it into a new level of popularity and exposure. .

The series has twice been featured as a subject of special episodes of the ABC News program 20/20, including one 2006 episode on the realism of the sometimes outlandish medical stories of Grey's Anatomy, and real cases similar to them. Additionally, a 2005 broadcast of ABC News' Nightline more specifically covered Grey's Anatomy's multiracial cast and race relations depiction in entertainment.

Season synopses

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

For more detailed synopses information, listed by episode, see List of Grey's Anatomy episodes.

Season 1: (2005)

Season one began airing March 27, 2005 and ended on May 22, 2005. Meredith Grey, daughter of the once-renowned surgeon Ellis Grey, becomes an intern at the Seattle Grace Hospital. She meets fellow interns Cristina, Izzie, and George who will be her closest friends during the intern program. Other characters include Dr. Miranda Bailey, who is nicknamed "The Nazi" due to her "tough love" capability; Alex Karev, another intern who is not very popular with the other interns (especially Izzie); and surgeons Dr. Derek Shepherd and Dr. Preston Burke. The chief of surgery is Richard Webber. The season chronicles the first few months of the intern program and the day-to-day life of a surgical intern. Recurring plots include Meredith's battle to keep her mother's Alzheimer's disease a secret and her relationship with Dr. Shepherd. Others include George's infatuation with Meredith and a power struggle between Dr. Burke and Dr. Shepherd.

Season 2: (2005 - 2006)

The first season originally contained 13 episodes, representing ABC's original midseason order for the show. However, it was decided to end the season early because ABC executives wished for the show's first season to end with ABC's Desperate Housewives (which had the timeslot before Grey's Anatomy for the first two seasons}. Rather than condensing or throwing out plotlines, Grey's Anatomy producers chose to end the season with the ninth episode and save the following episodes for the second season.
The season 2 cast of Grey's Anatomy
Enlarge
The season 2 cast of Grey's Anatomy
. Episodes 10-13 were then held and broadcast as the first four episodes of Season 2. ABC ordered 22 episodes in addition to the four being carried over, bringing the total number of episodes for the sophomore season to 26. The count apparently does not include the recap specials "Straight From The Heart" and "Under Pressure"; however, a 27th original episode was eventually added to the season. "Bring the Pain," which aired as the series' 14th episode, has been cited in series creator Shonda Rhimes' blog as having been originally intended as the first season finale. With 22 episodes following this episode, it is possible that the additional episode may have been inserted earlier rather than later in the season.

The series' second season began airing September 25, 2005, and concluded on May 14 and May 15, 2006 with a three-hour finale spanning both nights. The Season 2 DVD will be released on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 — nine days prior to the tentatively scheduled start of the third season.

Season 3: (2006 - 2007)

On May 16 2006, the morning following the close of the second season, ABC announced plans for a third season of Grey's Anatomy to anchor the network's Thursday evening programming[link], set to air at 9 p.m. EST. As Thursday has historically been the most competitive programming night among American broadcast networks, the announced schedule change for the series has been viewed by media analysts as another vote of confidence in the series from ABC. By extension, the move of the series has been cited as one potential factor for competing network NBC's decision to move its own Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, originally intended to air Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST.

ABC first tested the series' potential for Thursday audiences on February 9 2006, as it aired an encore of the Super Bowl XL-leadout episode titled "It's the End of the World". The following Thursday, February 16 2006, the network repeated the second part of the story arc, "(As We Know It)". Both airings began at 9:30 p.m. EST, and thus positioned Grey's Anatomy against CBS' and Without A Trace also Surviver and NBC's longtime medical drama ER. Solid performance on these nights, with the repeat airings maintaining a strong second place finish, may have been influential in the fall scheduling decision.

The series officially assumed its new Thursday slot on July 6 2006, as part of a two-hour event featuring a repeat of the pilot episode, "A Hard Day's Night". Throughout July and August, the series will air twice weekly — once in the new Thursday time period, and once in its previous Sunday time period.

Awards & nominations

Awards won

Golden Globes: Screen Actors Guild: TV Land Awards: NAACP Image Awards:

Awards nominated

Emmy Awards: Golden Globes: Screen Actors Guild:

DVDs

The first season of Grey's Anatomy was released on DVD on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 (in the United States: Region 1), containing all 9 Season 1 episodes. Bonus features include an alternate title sequence, audio commentaries, an extended pilot episode and a making-of featurette. The set contains 2 discs.

The second season of Grey's Anatomy is set to be released on September 12, 2006. [link]

Music

See Grey's Anatomy (soundtrack)
The show's main title theme is a snippet of "Cosy in the Rocket", by British artists Psapp. It is featured in the soundtrack album released via ABC corporate cousin Hollywood Records on September 27, 2005. A list of all the songs aired for each episode can be found on the program's official website.

Catchphrases and storyline patterns

The characters on Grey's Anatomy speak in a very contemporary way, resulting in unique dialogue. As a result, the show has spawned a couple of catchphrases.

  1. McDreamy, the first of this trend is a nickname given to Derek Shepherd by Cristina Yang
  2. McSteamy, Mark Sloan is given this by the female intern characters
  3. McHot, Addison Shepherd is given this by Alex
  4. McDog, the dog shared by McDreamy and Meredith
  5. McVet, Finn Dandridge
  6. McVomit, something George says he is holding back as female interns discuss other McNicknames
  • va-jay-jay, Dr. Bailey injected a noted euphemism for female genitalia: during the "Code Black" episode, George was assisting Addison Shepherd in Dr. Bailey's childbirth, and Bailey said to George, "O'Malley, stop looking at my va-jay-jay!" On the "Frequently Asked Questions" page of the show's official website, Shonda Rhimes credits assistant Blythe Robe as her source for the phrase.
  • my good girl, A supporting character called her genitalia "my good girl" in the episode Damage Case.
  • V-card, Chief Webber's wife Adele (Loretta Devine) used the phrase "cashing in her V-card" to describe her niece losing her virginity in the second-season finale.

    • Broadcasting

    Grey's Anatomy is broadcast on the following channels around the world:

    References

    External links

     

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