Tue, April 19, 2005
Grey's Anatomy
Someone told me I should be watching Grey's Anatomy on ABC. (I think it was my mom, so – there's that.) It's not that it looked bad, it's just I super-hate the "cutesy title" thing of having a character named Grey and then calling it Grey's Anatomy, plus do we really need more cop/lawyer/doctor shows? I love how the industry responds to the universally accepted truth that there are too many: more cop/lawyer/doctor shows, but this time they're only starting out! (e.g., the quickly canceled First Years, this.)
Anyway, I just sampled the first two episodes from TiVo. I'll probably have to stop watching it, not because it's bad but because it doesn't offer anything special and I really watch plenty of TV as it is. But I'm head-over-heels in love with Chandra Wilson as Dr. Bailey, the resident that our protagonist and her fellow interns report to. She takes a relatively one-dimensional character, as written (the surly, unapproachable resident who gives the newbies a hard time) and makes her pop off the screen – much like McGinley does on Scrubs. Isaiah Washington is excellent also, as the attending that Dr. Bailey works under. Ellen Pompeo (Run!! Lava!!) is passable as the titular Dr. Grey – not fantastic, but perfectly cute. (Imagine Renée Zellweger if she'd eaten a sandwich since 2001.) And Patrick Dempsey is still doing whatever it is he does that used to make my sister's slumber party pals squeal with delight – a whole new crop of cuties is surely squealing somewhere.
Grey's Anatomy followed the relatively standard practice, these days, of skipping the opening credits sequence for the pilot. (Producers acknowledge that it's a waste of time, pushing it aside in the premiere because they've got all these important characters to introduce – but the rest of the season, they're more than happy to waste the time.) What startled me, when I finally saw the opening, is that it centers around a series of juxtapositions between hospital life and nightlife. (Zipping an evening dress/tying up a surgery gown. Filling an IV bag/filling a martini glass.) Which seems to indicate that the show thinks that's what it's about. Other than the budding romance between Grey and the Patrick Dempsey character (which she's trying to nip in the bud, by the way), I haven't seen anything like this in the show. That's the kind of identity crisis that makes me wary.
Bring back Boston Legal! (I mean, they are, but still.)
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Brandon — Tue, 4/19/05 11:33pm
Ellen Pompeo (Run!! Lava!!) is passable as the titular Dr. Grey – not fantastic, but perfectly cute. (Imagine Renée Zellweger if she'd eaten a sandwich since 2001.)
Or just remember her from Old School, where she was also not fantastic, but perfectly cute.