Grey's Anatomy

I agreed to watch these from the start with my girlfriend.

I resisted at first but quickly got into it - the show is (was) full of drama, comedy, sadness, the whole Variety pack.

I had to stop watching the last season 17.

Although the show always tackled difficult social issues it did it as part of a story line, not always well, but it was always a situation that affected a character and you would see it play out.

This started to become less nuance as time went on until you get to season 17 where the characters all but look down the lens and say "these are the top ten reasons why America is racist" There is no story line or investigation into motivations or character just some glib -"yeah I am going to try harder not to murder my patients with racism"

Also Grey herself - how many times is this woman going to die?

The Terminator would have called it a day by now!

I swear she has her own parking space in Purgatory

The security guards see her coming and just wave her through.

"Hey, Meredith, what got you this time? Oh, a dolphin fell out of a hot-air balloon and crushed the ambulance that was carrying you away from that train wreck? What are the chances, eh?"

All things have to come to and end.

This must surely be the end.

The early seasons of Grey's were so great! I loved the characters and their stories. The show is still good years later, but nothing will ever compare to the original cast!

This used to be such an addictive show. The medical and personal life storylines were interesting, and the characters were written well so that you got attached to them.

I did enjoy it for a lot of its run, but it has been slowly going downhill by bringing in boring characters, pulling back on medical mysteries and stories, and having all their characters sleeping and making babies with one another. It also started trading good writing with awkward preachy interludes - though not too often at first.

I had watched it through before, and stopped at season 17 because it just got so bad. But this time I decided I was going to just keep watching through. Well I got halfway through s17ep6 and I couldn't take it. The writing is so boring, it brings COVID into a world we went to to escape things like COVID, and replaces a lot of meaningful dialogue with awkward, badly written politcal soap box speeches.

There's a way to bring awareness to issues without sacrificing good writing and just repeating political youtuber talking points. If I wanted political rants I can find those elsewhere. I watched this show for the interesting medical drama and interesting characters, and it's gotten to the point where it's about everything but that. It's become unwatchable.

The beginning season were amazing!! Great actors with interesting storylines, it had the perfect amount of humor and heart to go along with the brutal cases brought into the hospital. But then it started to lose it's heart, characters became extremely annoying, and the personal issues of the characters became exhausting as they never seemed to change. Grey's Anatomy had a great cast to start with, then they took those characters and slowly made them unbearable to stand. While eventually getting rid of some of the best actors on the show to replace them with people who you will not be able to tolerate for very long. I wish this show would focus more on the medicine aspect and less on the personal lives of the doctors. It would be nice if they would clean up the cast and get better actors with better storylines or just end the show! 15 seasons is a bit much.

The Network From Nowhere really knocked me for a loop by smacking the viewing audience upside its collective head with THREE strong series that came out winners: "Desperate Housewives" and "LOST" being the first two.

Now that we are well into the second season for both of those, and their story arcs are looking a little 'iffy', it's the third and most surprising contender, "Grey's Anatomy", that looks to be the strongest of the bunch. As the follow-up riding on "Housewives'" coattails, I was ready to dismiss it outright as "Ally McBeal in hospital scrubs." But not having much else to watch in that time slot, I decided to give it a try, and was I pleasantly shocked! Though there ARE some moments where the principal characters come off as self-centered, neurotic and at times downright eccentric, it never reached the level of absurdity that "Ally" often did, and thank God for that! Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey comes off as likable and probably more self-aware and introspective than self-absorbed and scatterbrained, though there are moments you do want to reach into the screen and give her a good shaking.

And good call on the ensemble casting! You really have to give props to any show that FINALLY figures out how to effectively showcase the sweet-and-sour charms of Sandra Oh, who was good enough to elevate a sow's ear of a show like "Arli$$," if not to save it. And not to mention give assorted actors who have all been great in projects not up to their talents, the chance to really shine in some very well-written roles, and I want to single out Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, Chandra Wilson and especially T.R. Knight as George, who is really coming into his own as this season progresses.

Not to snub Isaiah Washington, James Pickens, Jr., Kate Walsh or the so-hot-it's-criminal Patrick Dempsey. Seasoned vets all, it's just good to see them all land in a nice place where they can do great work with some sense of job security. (WE HOPE.)

Realistic enough to be accessible but not a turn-off, and whimsically light enough at other times without straying into "Stefan-the-Frog" territory, (are you listening, David Kelley?), "Grey's" should remain as a dependable Sunday night staple as long as creator/producer Shonda Rhimes and her crew are able to continue to strike that balance, and keep its newfound audience interested and entertained with the trials, tribulations and trysts of the staff at Seattle Grace Hospital.