“Grey’s Anatomy” has been on the air since 2005, which is to say that it’s experienced a handful of high highs and very low lows. Shonda Rhimes’ medical drama, which premiered as a humble mid-season replacement and became one of the longest-running shows in the history of its medium, stars Ellen Pompeo as surgical intern turned award-winning general surgery attending and hospital owner Dr. Meredith Grey, who lives, loves, and learns alongside her colleagues and who has a knack for picking up cases that connect to her personal life in some way (as all of the doctors do, honestly).
(I say it “stars” Pompeo, but there’s a technicality here; Pompeo technically left “Grey’s Anatomy” as a series regular in Season 19 in 2022, but still provides voiceover and appears on the show often enough that she’s still the main character for all intents and purposes.)
There are, if I’m being honest, many parts of “Grey’s Anatomy” that one could identify as a major series downfall, like the time Dr. Isobel “Izzie” Stevens (Katherine Heigl) has ghostly physical intimacy with her dead fiancé before figuring out it’s a brain tumor, the time a plane crash kills most of the show’s surgeons, or every time a wedding is interrupted by a dramatic, ridiculous problem. The issue? Many of those lows are followed by highs (as Heigl’s Izzie leaves the series, there’s a hospital merger followed by a two-part finale in Season 6 that’s a legitimate series highlight). That’s why I’m pointing to a true point of no return for “Grey’s Anatomy,” and I am truly sorry to say that, despite my respect for the show’s commitment to “realism” during a terrifying time for the entire world, the 17th season of the medical drama, also known as the “COVID season,” is its downfall.
The COVID-19 season of Grey’s Anatomy changed the show forever … for the worse
At face value, it makes total sense for a show like “Grey’s Anatomy” to address the very real COVID-19 pandemic head-on; because the characters also dressed in protective medical gear, there was an air of practicality to the whole thing to boot. Here’s the problem: the way they addressed it was straight-up bonkers. Partway through Season 17, Meredith develops a pretty serious case of COVID-19, which sidelines her (and, to an extent, Ellen Pompeo) for the remainder of the season’s run, giving her a truly bizarre storyline where she sees dead loved ones in dreams in a random seaside location that fans like me simply refer to as the “coma beach.”
Beyond that, Season 17’s dogged commitment to showing all of the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic dragged down the show’s energy — and it’s never really recovered. Gone were the show’s lighter moments, like an episode as late as Season 14 where most doctors accidentally eat cookies infused with cannabis and all have to wait out their variously affected states while not practicing any medicine whatsoever.
Instead, fans of the series couldn’t escape the pandemic surrounding them, and to make things worse, the show’s best quality — its genuinely funny and smart dialogue — fell by the wayside in the process. Meredith may have eventually recovered from her severe case of COVID-19 and left the coma beach behind after Season 17, but the show wasn’t able to pull off the same feat … and as it continues, you can feel the slip in quality with each passing season.
After the COVID-19 season, Grey’s Anatomy became a preachy, expository, run-of-the-mill medical drama
I know better than most people that “Grey’s Anatomy” has its fair share of detractors; I’ve been watching this damn show since it premiered, and it’s one of the longest relationships of my life without comparison. I’ll be among the first to admit that a lot of it is heightened and silly — and I got the chance to interview a friend who’s a real doctor for this very site, who confirmed that it’s the least realistic televised medical drama by a country mile.
Still, I’ll go to the mat for a lot of seasons and episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy.” Shonda Rhimes, while she was still hands-on with the series, was a masterful dialogue writer and gave actors like Sandra Oh (who left the series after the Season 10 finale) unbelievably sharp monologues with regularity. The chemistry between most of the original actors was undeniably great, its jokes often hit their mark beautifully, and remember that two-part Season 6 finale I mentioned? “Sanctuary” and “Death and All His Friends,” which chronicles a devastating mass shooting within the walls of the central hospital, is one of my favorite TV episodes ever … and I’d stack it against plenty of prestige dramas any day.
That’s what makes the fall of “Grey’s Anatomy” particularly painful for me. I’m committed to the proverbial bit by still watching it, but it’s painful. Instead of quippy dialogue that feels like a tennis match, characters over-explain everything in the preachiest way possible (like a female doctor explaining to a male counterpart that women get Brazilian butt lifts because society influences them into it). “Grey’s Anatomy” is a pale shadow of what it once was, and it all started in Season 17.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
