Grey's Anatomy, "The Time Warp": Back in the day

Been a while since I've written about "Grey's Anatomy," but since several of my regular Thursday shows were off last night, and since the episode was both off-format and fairly interesting, let's have a review coming up just as soon as I throw you a chocolate...

Sooner or later, most dramas will resort to flashback episodes like "The Time Warp." They're an easy way to shake up a familiar formula for a week, they allow the writers to fill in some backstory, they allow the actors to play different versions of familiar characters, and the fans tend to like some or all of those things. This one didn't live up to some others I've seen - in particular the "St. Elsewhere"(*) two-parter "Time Heals," which told stories from throughout the hospital's 50-year history - but it hit most of the necessary marks, and was a particularly good showcase for Chandra Wilson as the young, mousy "Mandy" Bailey.

(*) Speaking of "St. Elsewhere," the Richard/Ellis storyline took place in the same year as that show's first season, and since I know what a 1982 hospital drama looks like, it was weird to see how the hair and wardrobe choices seemed to be from several years earlier than that, more '70s than early '80s. Then again, most flashback episodes have this problem; whenever "Friends" showed us Chandler in the '80s, his allegedly trendy haircuts were always years out of date.

There were moments in that '80s storyline where the show went for the easy choice, particularly when the attending was revealed to be a racist and a sexist. I'm not saying that there weren't plenty of doctors with those attitudes from that period, but as drama, it felt cheap. Either make him a lot smoother and subtler in his bigotry, or limit him to being one of racist, sexist, ageist or homophobic, but not all four. Still, Sarah Paulson was a very good choice as the young Ellis, really evoking what we saw of Kate Burton in seasons past. J. August Richards was handicapped by a distracting hairpiece, but I also saw less of James Pickens Jr. in him.

A few questions on the more contemporary stories: First, whatever happened to the evil surgical attending played by Missi Pyle? (Another character, by the way, who was a little too blatant a villain, even though I'm sure such surgeons also exist in every program.) I know the series' timeline is always going to be wonky (which is also why it was probably a mistake to give us a specific date for Bailey's intern year), but Bailey's up on stage talking trash about someone who, if she's left the hospital, only did so a short time ago.

Second, how does everybody feel about the continuity insert of Karev and Callie hooking up briefly back before she met George? This is a show that already has had too many characters sleeping with too many other characters - so much so that my wife was under the impression we'd already seen these two have sex - and I don't know what's necessarily gained by adding another coupling in the past.

Overall, though, pretty good, and Richard's oath at the end (paralleling his AA speech at the beginning) was a very nice moment for Pickens. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Give Peace a Chance": Eeeny-meeny diaper genie

Fair is still fair. I said last week that I wouldn't be blogging "Grey's Anatomy" regularly so I could focus on the good stuff and not dwell on the parts I don't like, but that I would pop in to talk about episodes I particularly liked, and this is two weeks in a row of that.

I don't know if Ellen Pompeo's quasi-maternity leave and Katherine Heigl's temporary hiatus to film a movie forced Shonda Rhimes and company to focus more on straight-up medical drama and less on romantic angst and light comedy, or if this tonal shift was planned all along, but I really, really like it. While the dating and comedy are what distinguished "Grey's" from other hospital shows, its most reliable element has been when it just deals with the medicine with a minimum of frills, and "Give Peace a Chance" was another good example of that. And I've found Derek a lot more interesting as super-surgeon than I ever did when he was just the object of Meredith's desire.

Plus, the episode gave me an excuse to use that subject line. Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "I Saw What I Saw": Perspective

I've more or less stopped blogging about "Grey's Anatomy," because I realized that if I just watched the show without writing about it later, it became much easier to ignore the parts I don't like (which ain't going away, because they're part of the fabric of the series) and enjoy the parts that I do. But I want to make a brief exception for last night's episode, which featured lots of the good stuff and virtually none of the bad. They can't go as dark as this every week, but it worked very well for an hour, and the "Rashomon" gimmick (telling the story of the patient's death from multiple perspectives) actually added to the proceedings (it gave a better sense of the chaos of the night, and of the ongoing tensions created by the merger), when sometimes TV shows do the multiple-POV thing and get nothing extra out of it.

I suspect I'll go back to watching-only next week, but I wanted to give credit where credit was due, and this was one of the best episodes they've done in a long time.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Good Mourning"/"Goodbye": Laugh till you cry

Some quick thoughts on the two-hour "Grey's Anatomy" season premiere coming up just as soon as I say "rue"...

As the two titles suggest (as did the multiple use of the title logo at 10 o'clock), the premiere was actually two separate episodes aired back-to-back. And I keep going back and forth on whether it was a good idea to do that, or if we'd have been better off spacing out the tearful speeches over two weeks.

That isn't to say that there shouldn't have been tears, or speeches. George's death, no matter how marginal he had become last season, is and should be a huge event in the lives of these characters. Had the show raced through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's famous five stages of grief (as opposed to the four stages of cancer, with the fifth stage being death), it would have rang false, as if everyone making the show was in a hurry to move past the events of the wildly uneven fifth season. And I also recognize that putting both episodes on a single night allows the show to deal with the mourning period in an appropriate but self-contained way, so that when we do get into these season six stories about the hospital merger and the rest, it won't feel like there's a constant pall cast over them.

My problem, I guess, is that there's a very specific rhythm to a "Grey's" script - particularly a big three-hanky one like this - whether it's written by Shonda Rhimes herself or in this case by Krista Vernoff. When you put two episodes back-to-back, those rhythms - the pace at which the acts build to emotional crescendos and then briefly recede - start to become too predictable, and it sucks some of the life and emotion away.

There were so many strong performances (particularly by Sara Ramirez, Chandra Wilson and Justin Chambers) in these two hours, as well as a lot of great individual moments, highlighted by the hysterical laughter at George's funeral. But in the end it felt a little like overkill - or over-grief, I suppose.

Still, "Good Mourning" and "Goodbye" maintained the tone and quality of the creative upswing we got at the end of last season. In general, "Grey's" is really strong at the starts and ends of seasons - I liked last season's premiere - but things are a lot dicier in the middle. I'm hopeful this season's equivalents of Wacky Asperger's Doc or Ghost Sex are at least briefer than last season's. And maybe we'll get lucky, and skip over the bad patch altogether.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Here's to Future Days"/"Now Or Never": Double-OMG

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" season finale -- and if you haven't watched it yet but intend to, and somehow have avoided being spoiled so far, I strongly advise you to run away from your computer for the day -- coming up just as soon as I cry in front of an authority figure...

The reason I'm usually such a stickler(*) when it comes to people posting spoilers here is because I have one of those brains that, once it possesses even a hint about what might be happening, it can't stop trying to figure out the whole puzzle ahead of time.

(*) Fans of "How I Met Your Mother" might appear to want to take issue with that idea this week.

Last night, I watched the NBC comedies, and I blogged about them, and then I went to sleep. While I was doing the blogging, my wife watched the second half of the "Grey's" finale live, and when she found me after, she looked shaken and said she wanted to be able to discuss it with me after she watched. Then this morning, I woke up to find all sorts of ominous references to cliffhangers and twists and even deaths across the blogosphere, the Twitter-verse, and all my other virtual haunts.

Between that, and all the rumors about Katherine Heigl and/or T.R. Knight leaving the show, by the time I actually was able to start watching the "Grey's" finale a couple of hours ago, I was on alert for something horrible and/or surprising to happen to one or both of Izzie and George. So I assumed Izzie would crash right at the moment she was doing so well with her memory, and I figured out that George was the mangled John Doe practically from the minute the camera went close up on his eyes looking around the trauma room. (And when he tried and failed to write something on Meredith's palm, and I realized we hadn't seen George in a long time, that sealed things.)

Now, none of this is the fault of Shonda Rhimes (who did a long but unsurprisingly vague interview about the finale with Michael Ausiello), or Debora Cahn, or anyone else involved in making that final episode. (Unless you want to say that, because "ER" did something similar to the George thing with Dennis Gant, no other hospital show can ever copy it -- which, considering the number of stories "ER" told over 14 seasons would make life really tough for other doctor shows.) It's just one of the dangers of our information over-saturation age. But it also means that I couldn't experience the finale the way they intended me to. I wasn't shocked by what happened with either Izzie or George, regardless of whether they died or not(**).

(**) And if I had to put money on that, I'd wager that George is dead and Izzie lives. Shonda told Ausiello that one of the reasons George was so absent this season was that she didn't want it to be as noticeable when he was gone for a long stretch in the finale. Whether it was really as by design as that -- and given the way Izzie's condition evoked Mariette Hartley in the season premiere, I'm guessing there was some plan in place for this from the start -- the show seemed to get along just fine not giving Knight anything to do, where Izzie has always been one of Shonda's favorite characters to write for. Izzie drives me nuts, but she seems more integral to Shonda's vision for the show.

And yet, despite not being as stunned or blown away as I imagine I was supposed to, I still greatly enjoyed large swaths of both episodes, which continued the creative upswing that began around late March's "Stand By Me." Great guest stars (Matt Saracen! Paris Gellar!). Great use of the core cast, particularly the Hunt/Yang scenes in the first hour and the Karev/Izzie scenes in both (regardless of my lack of surprise, Justin Chambers and Katherine Heigl were both great). Chandra Wilson continued to stand tall above the rest of the cast with the Bailey scenes in both episodes, particularly her crying in front of the Chief. And Meredith and Derek getting "married" via Post-It note was so perfect for their characters that I really hope, as Shonda suggests to Ausiello, that that's the only wedding we ever get to see for the two of them. (Though I imagine they have to go to City Hall at some point just to get the legal protections of marriage.)

I wish I was able to go into this one pristine, but I wasn't, and I still liked a lot of it. During those fallow periods in the middle of the last few seasons, people kept asking me why I was still watching and/or blogging about "Grey's Anatomy." This last batch of episodes is why. This show is a free-swinging power hitter. When it swings and misses, it looks horrendous. But when it connects with the pitch it wants, all you can do is sit back and admire it.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "What a Difference a Day Makes": They do

Quick thoughts on last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I order a salad...

For an episode that was so Izzie-centric -- and, on top of that, for an episode that brought back the ghost of Denny again -- "What a Difference a Day Makes" worked surprisingly well for me. Part of it is that the stakes are much greater now; now we know a Denny appearance means Very Bad Things for Izzie (as opposed to VBT for the show itself), and it's also something Izzie can openly discuss with other people. And those higher stakes also encourage Meredith and Derek and Cristina -- three characters who can be likable at times and insufferably narcissistic at others -- to be at their most selfless. Meredith letting Izzie take over the wedding that Meredith never wanted in the first place and Izzie did was a great gesture, enough that I overlooked the unlikelihood of Katherine Heigl fitting into a dress that was tailored for Ellen Pompeo.

But part of it is that any kind of Izzie-centric episode means it's also going to be an Alex-centric episode, and Justin Chambers is acting on a really high level right now. When he gave that speech about how it's time to stop being the smart-aleck kid and become a man, I thought to myself, "You made that transition a couple of seasons ago, guy, but it's good for you to notice." Chandra Wilson is arguably the best actor in the ensemble, but because of how far Karev has come, Chambers' big moments always feel more surprising, and powerful.

I also really liked all the action in the pit, from Callie breaking down and telling Arizona the real reason their date went south to Hunt trying to help George deal with losing every patient that day. (For that matter, it was effective just to see a mass casualty like this where the doctors were able to accomplish so little.)

Only one (two-hour) episode left to go in the season, and before we have a better idea of Heigl and/or T.R. Knight's future employment on the show. One way or the other, I'll be glad to put those rumors to bed.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "No Good at Saying Sorry (One More Chance)": Hug hug, bang bang

Spoilers for tonight's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I place a call to my psychic...

If last week's "Sweet Surrender" was a mixture of parts of "Grey's" I love (Bailey with the dying girl, George helping out Alex) and things that make my teeth grind (Izzie the manic wedding planner), "No Good at Saying Sorry (One More Chance)" was more a combination of elements that are intriguing but underfed and aspects of the show I grudgingly tolerate. Its lows weren't as low, but nor were its highs as high.

The strongest part of the hour, by far, was Hunt struggling to be around Cristina, and Cristina missing the point entirely until she confronted him on the way home. Sandra Oh and Kevin McKidd have been superb whenever called upon in this story arc, and they've gotten more to do lately, but their story here felt a little crowded by all that was going on around it.

Other than that, we had a lot of parent/child conflicts to deal with, as Izzie had to play mother to her own mom (Sharon Lawrence, now specializing in these cougar roles, but seemingly miscast as proud trailer trash), Callie struggled with being financially cut off by her dad, Lexxie welcomed Thatcher's apology while Meredith ignored it(*), Meredith grappled with the Chief over his paternal attitude towards her, and with her involvement in the case of the little girl who shot her abusive daddy 18 times to protect herself and her mommy.

(*) While I can see why Lexxie might be so grateful to have her dad back in her life, I was actually expecting her to be a lot more upset by the apology than Meredith. Thatcher walked out of her life at an early age, and Meredith could basically give a toss about the guy. But he's much closer to Lexxie, and therefore I thought perhaps she'd feel even more betrayed than Meredith. How it played out didn't feel wrong; just not what I assumed it would be.

Now, I know it's a staple of these kinds of shows for the patient's story to in some way parallel the doctor's, but it always bothers me when the doctor then projects his or her emotional needs onto the patient, and Meredith has a tendency to do this every two or three episodes. I liked that the Chief called her out for yelling at the mom, then got frustrated when he let her off the hook. One of the stories of this season has been Meredith starting to grow up and get past her drama queen roots, and I'd like to think she might be able to keep her emotions in check in situations like this. I get that if she actually did things by the book, there might not be enough conflict to tell a story on a dramatic TV series, but this is never my favorite kind of "Grey's" Story.

Beyond that, I found it weird to see Kellie Martin on a hospital show watching a trauma scene as the relative of a patient and not as a doctor (and/or not being stabbed by David Krumholtz). Work's work, and her stint on "ER" ended, what, nine years ago? (Wow. Time flies.) But I spent a lot of time feeling nostalgic about "ER" last month, and so now every time I see Martin I think about Lucy Knight.

Two episodes to go in the season. I'm hoping the show goes out on a high note.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Sweet Surrender": The wedding planner

Spoilers for tonight's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I stress eat to hide my pregnancy...

Really, honestly, today's column about the annoying comic music on ABC dramas was going to be a "Why 'Grey's Anatomy' has been much better lately" column, but then two things happened: 1)I didn't find "Sweet Surrender" and next week's episode to be quite as strong as the previous batch; and 2)The number of scenes featuring the Please Laugh Now music was so high that I felt I finally had no choice but to publish a screed about it.

Of course, the number of scenes that someone felt required that music no doubt played into my ambivalence about an episode like "Sweet Surrender," which had a number of very good things and a number of annoying things in it. "Grey's" frequently tells stories that start out wildly comic and then take a turn for the tragic around the 40-minute mark. But if the comedy feels forced -- which it definitely did in the Izzie subplot, and only slightly less so in the Derek/Mark/Lexxie story -- then the shift into the drama doesn't work. Some of that forced quality comes from the damn music, but not all of it, particularly with Izzie the manic wedding planner. (The crazier they make Izzie, particularly funny/crazy, the more grating Katherine Heigl becomes.)

On the other hand, the 100% dramatic Bailey storyline? Killer -- pun quasi-intended. Yes, it's somewhat shameless heartstring-tugging to show Bailey spend an episode hugging a dying little girl, but if they're serious about taking her down this pediatrics route, then they needed to address the way that it's a specialty where the patient deaths hit the hardest. Chandra Wilson has an episode for her Emmy reel now, and she was terrific.

I was also glad to get what feels like the first real George storyline in forever. Sure, he's partly an adjunct to Karev's story, and Hunt's, but we got to see George take a stand on something, feel present for an entire episode, kick ass in surgery, and even know when to pass Alex the beer at the end. I can understand why T.R. Knight might be dissatisfied with the amount and quality of material he's gotten this season, but he delivered when finally called to serve.

There was other good stuff, including Hunt going to see the hospital shrink, Callie ranting in Spanish (and Mark not indulging her) and the Chief looking at Meredith in the wedding dress like the daughter he never had (in an episode that was very much about parenting). But the show had been on a really great roll when it went into reruns a month ago, when I was having a hard time finding fault with any of the episodes. So to see them going back to some of the annoying comedy stuff that was uneven in the show's early days was a little disappointing.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Elevator Love Letter": A more-than-decent proposal

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I knit a scarf...

Okay, the series is on a real roll right now. I can't really forgive the ghost sex or the interns starring in their own David Cronenberg movie, but if the rest of the season is as good as the last few episodes have been, I can at least try to forget that stuff.

Start with that horrifying opening sequence with Hunt trying to strangle Cristina in his sleep. Even though I knew it was coming -- Kevin McKidd had been making the talk show rounds to promote the episode -- it was still riveting because of how dead Hunt's eyes were and how Cristina wasn't able to get a sound out or even really struggle because of his size/strength advantage. Seeing her flail around, or some sort of insane look on his face, would have made the scene feel over-the-top and cheesey; this felt disturbing. I don't know if this is how PTSD actually manifests itself, but it seemed that way. And after being stuck on the sideline for too much of this season, Kevin McKidd and Sandra Oh are killing right now.

I thought Derek's proposal -- and Meredith's behavior in response to his earlier attempts -- was very grown-up and sweet, and reflected a relationship that's grown to be about more than the stupid will-they-or-won't-they drama. And the moment when Derek finally came out of his stupor and started telling off the oncologist was well-played by Patrick Dempsey, who's been doing some nice work during this arc.

Izzie's impending surgery, meanwhile, gave every member of the ensemble something good to play, whether it was Callie and George revisiting their divorce or Bailey being the only doctor who could control her emotions enough to visit Izzie, or, especially, Karev telling Meredith that he should have looked into the ghost nonsense much sooner. (You and Shonda both, buddy.) Every time I watch Justin Chambers get a showcase episode like this, I think about how lucky he is -- and we are -- that the "Cold Case" producers decided to can him after a few episodes, which allowed him to land this more demanding, high-profile gig.

"Elevator Love Letter" wasn't perfect. The storyline about the perpetually-dying old woman was way too obvious in the exact way the tone was going to shift from comedy to poignancy, and I think the time may be coming for me to write a screed about how every ABC drama is apparently required to use the same cutesy You Are Watching A Funny Scene Now music over anything even vaguely comic (which, again, is a network-wide problem, not something that's "Grey's"-specific), but overall, very, very strong.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Stand By Me": Doctor/patient privilege

Quick spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I get a beer...

I haven't written about the last couple of episodes of "Grey's," but it feels like this season has finally taken a turn for the better, with "Stand By Me" being the first episode since very early in the season that I liked pretty much unreservedly. Now, this is two seasons in a row of "Grey's" where we had to suffer through a whole lot of heinousness (ghost sex, Frankenstein interns, and Asperger Doc this year; George + Izzie, the end of Bailey's marriage, and non-stop moping by everyone last year) before Shonda finally pulled things out of the tailspin late in the year. (Both upswings, perhaps not coincidentally, were punctuated by a Kate Walsh guest appearance.) Considering that this season started off pretty well before flying off the rails, maybe ABC should figure out some kind of scheduling plan that keeps the show off the air in the winter and only around for fall and spring.

Regardless of all the silliness that took us to this point, Izzie's illness is now being taken seriously by the show and its characters, and I liked seeing Yang struggle to keep the secret, to the point of almost messing up her first solo surgery. And Justin Chambers and Chandra Wilson did a great job acting with their eyes when Cristina spilled the beans in the operating room. And, of course, Izzie's problem ties in neatly with Derek's crisis of confidence, which gave Meredith the opportunity to make a very mature and well-phrased argument for why he needs to get back to the hospital already, regardless of what happens with them.

Derek's story was maybe the strongest part of the episode, as his sense of helplessness slowly engulfed first Callie, then Hunt, a set of characters we've rarely seen spend much time together before. And that in turn led to the Chief coming in for an emotional ass-kicking, which has always been one of James Pickens' specialties.

I also thought the interns were better used here than they've been at any point to date. We're seeing the hospital from the point of view of what are now the second-year residents, but there were interns before them and interns after them, and surely Lexie isn't the only one of them going through her own equivalent of what we saw over the first few seasons. It's good to see that they're catty, too, and that they have their own personal drama going on that Meredith is trying to avoid noticing just as much as Bailey tried to ignore her drama back in the day.

People keep asking me why I suffer through this show I bash so often, and that's so easy to beat up on or abandon. An episode like this, and the possibilities it creates for the remainder of the season, is why. When "Grey's" is good, it's very very good. And when it's bad, people have sex with ghosts.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice: Underwhelming crossover

So, like a good sucker, the prospect of a "Grey's Anatomy" / "Private Practice" cross-over actually got me to watch both shows last night. After the jump, some thoughts on how it worked, and whether it might be enough to get me watching "Private Practice" again on a regular basis (hint: no)...

I was talking with my friend Rich about these episodes, and we each felt it was less a cross-over than a two-hour episode of "Grey's," with a sprinkling of obligatory scenes at Oceanside Wellness in the second half in lieu of Meredith and Cristina angsting about how little they know the men in their lives.

And, frankly, I'm fine with that. Whatever problems I have with "Grey's," it's still a vastly more entertaining show than "Private Practice." The setting is more interesting, the stakes higher, the cast and characters better-drawn and with more compelling relationships, etc. Addison is always a much more dynamic, vibrant character when she's walking the halls of Seattle Grace than she is down on the beach, and a pair of episodes like these just reminded me of how much I want the spin-off to end so she can come back for good.

It was also amusing to me that the "Grey's" regulars featured in the second episode were McDreamy, McSteamy, Bailey, Karev and the Chief, since around the time the backdoor pilot for "Private Practice" aired, I wrote a column saying I had grown to hate so many of the original characters that I wished the spin-off would be about Addison going to work at a new hospital and taking that group (minus McDreamy, who was used well here, away from the usual Meredith dramatics) with her. Now, a number of other "Grey's" characters have been rehabilitated since -- Callie, for instance, had a nice moment last night where she reminded Addison that God would know who she was -- and they've added other good people like Kevin McKidd (who finally got some material to play and knocked it out of the park). But I watched a lot of the scenes in the second hour and felt like I would be satisfied with a show featuring only this group of people (and, yes, that includes Taye Diggs and Audra McDonald, I suppose).

As for the "Grey's"-only hour, I see that Melissa George got written out more definitively than Brooke Smith, and I won't especially miss her. And in addition to the Hunt/Yang story finally getting some room to move, I liked the parts of Izzie's game that didn't actually involve Izzie. Cristina blithely saying she had all the symptoms of testicular cancer was one of the funnier throwaway moments the show's had in a while.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Beat Your Heart Out": Delayed gratification

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I plant a kiss on a strange new colleague...

With the specter of Denny Duquette no longer hanging over the show (for now, anyway), "Beat Your Heart Out" was able to get back to some of the series' stronger elements, but it also featured some of the weaker ones.

After all the talk of how excited Shonda Rhimes was to write for Kevin McKidd, I've been baffled by the microscopic amount of screentime devoted to the Yang/Hunt romance. I pretty much always like those scenes and then forget about them immediately because they only take up two minutes per episode. Last night, we got quite a bit more of them than usual, and I thought the gag of having them wander the halls as if they were characters in a Jane Austen story, immediately after Cristina referred to Ellis' diary as seeming like a Victorian romance, was a good one. And Cristina's attempt to hug the demons out of Owen almost -- almost -- redeemed the earlier scene with Dr. Dixon where she got the idea. (More on that in a bit.) If it turns out the mystery blonde woman who triggered Hunt's despair is the wife he abandoned, then I'm going to be annoyed, because they already played that note with Addison(*), and they don't need to do it again.

(*) Speaking of which, it's been a while since I watched "Private Practice," but am I correct in assuming that the extent of the cross-over content in their episode was simply Addison calling Derek for his help? Or was it more significant than that?

I also thought that Derek's struggle to find the right way to propose to Meredith worked, both because Meredith is such a brittle little drama queen, and because it was never played on a life-or-death level. We know he's going to pop the question sooner or later, and that Shonda's not dumb enough to split them up again, so it's more of a relationship in microcosm moment than the precursor to a dumb sweeps twist.

Chandra Wilson continues to do great work in the Bailey-as-pediatric-surgeon arc, particularly the nearly-silent glimpse of Miranda down in the daycare center, reassuring herself that her son was okay and trying to shut out images of dying kids. After fumbling around for a few years to find an ongoing storyline that works for the one level-headed character who's never going to get involved in romantic shenanigans, I think Shonda and company finally hit on the right one here.

But then... then we have Dr. Dixon, whom I thought/hoped we were done with. She was drawn slightly less cartoonishly than in her previous appearances, but she still seems more alien than Asperger's, and I still winced at the tinkly "It's all a joke, folks!" piano music they played during the hug scene(**).

(**) The "This is how you're supposed to feel now" musical score is a problem endemic to a lot of ABC shows -- the Berlanti shows frequently suffer from it -- and I have to assume it's a direction coming from the network and not from each showrunner. Either way, I hate it. Let a damn scene breathe once in a while, folks, Please.

And then we had Arizona whatsername randomly planting one on Callie about 30 seconds after their first conversation began. On what planet, regardless of age, mood or sexual orientation, does that scene end that way for those two people? I get that they wanted to pair off Callie after the awkward, network-mandated firing of Brooke Smith, but how about a little foreplay, folks?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Stairway to Heaven": Ghost/not-a-ghost?

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I smell some lemons...

I watched the last two episodes at odd hours during press tour and could never find a window to blog on them. But despite my fatigue, and my general disdain for this season since the Denny's ghost arc began, I found myself... not only not hating them, but actually liking them quite a bit. Yes, throughout this mini-arc I had to ignore all the Denny/Izzie stuff (which was mercifully brief until tonight), and to once again accept that there will never be any professional consequences for any of the insane things these surgeons do on a weekly basis. But the emotional conflicts -- between Meredith and Cristina, between Meredith and Derek, Bailey and time -- and Eric Stoltz's performance were all very strong, and helped carry me through some of the sillier parts. Chandra Wilson took her own performance to a new level with the Bailey storyline, and last night's closing montage, set to "Drifting Further Away" by Powderfinger, was one of the best needle drops the series has ever used. Even though I'd sort of lost the thread of why Meredith felt compassion for the serial killer, or even why she and Cristina hadn't made up yet, that song over those scenes gave them a power they might have otherwise lacked.

On the other hand, we apparently come to the end of Denny's appearances -- but not the end of Izzie's part of the story -- and I still don't know whether or not Denny's a ghost, regardless of what the head of ABC said last week. It would seem, as many of us speculated, that Izzie has some kind of serious medical problem that could have caused Denny to appear as a hallucination. But their final argument played out in a way implying something else: that celestial forces sent Denny to warn Izzie about her problem, and that Denny took advantage of the opportunity to rekindle the affair.

Now, I'll go with Meredith hanging out with Denny and Dylan the bomb squad guy while she's clinically dead -- it wasn't my favorite story of the series, but it worked in the context of that situation -- but this is just aggressively silly, even by the standards of a show where nobody ever gets fired for career-ending mistakes, and where one of the characters in this episode suffers a mortifying groin-related injury.

Steve McPherson promised that this story would turn out to be "insightful and actually smart." I ain't seeing that yet, not remotely, and if there's a better payoff coming, we've had to wait far too long for it.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "All By Myself": Do you truly know what it is to feel? To... love?

Honestly, I don't know what to say about "Grey's Anatomy" anymore, except that it's gone past the point of annoying me. I'm now actually offended half the time. Memo to Shonda Rhimes: Mary McDonnell is playing someone with Asperger's. She is not playing a Vulcan. The L'il Gray/McSteamy scene at the end was disturbing, the "Seven Year Itch" homage with Yang doesn't work if she's wearing pants,

And as for the Izzie/Denny stuff... sigh. Ausiello has a big spoiler out there that we're not going to discuss here, but no matter where this story's going, it makes me feel stupider every time I watch it.

If it wasn't for the continued excellence of the guest star stories, I'd be a cloud of dust. What does everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

ER & Grey's Anatomy: It's a teaching hospital, stupid

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" and "ER" coming up just as soon as I work up a sweat...

Interesting that both shows did stories about the surgical residents not being interested in teaching their interns, only to have the stories resolve in divergent ways. On "ER," Neela gets chewed out -- and rightfully so -- for not wanting to work with young Andrew anymore. On "Grey's," the secret cutting society is treated as entirely the fault of the interns, even though it started up because Yang, Karev and the rest couldn't be bothered passing on any lessons to the young pups. If we hadn't watched several seasons of the show with the main characters as interns, and saw how much Bailey let them do and how much they learned, I might just accept that this is an intern's lot in life. But it's not, at least not in the universe the show created in previous years, and to not have the Chief lay at least some of the blame for this on Meredith and Cristina for treating the interns like indentured scut servants and little more was galling...

...albeit not as galling as a character (in this case, Alex) once again being forced to justify Izzie's continued employment in the wake of the Denny/LVAD fiasco. How many times do I need to say this: if Shonda and the other writers would stop trying to defend the Denny thing and just ignore its existence, we might be able to let it go. But in having yet another character claim it was kinda sorta okay, and in bringing Denny back from the dead somehow to rock Izzie's world, it makes it really hard to ignore the single worst storyline in the show's history.

And speaking of this supernatural sex marathon, Shonda shot down the most obvious speculation by telling Ausiello that, as Ahnuld once said, it's not a tumor. A tumor would have been a soap-y explanation, but at least it would have worked within the framework of this show. Actual sex with a solidified ghost? Blurg.

If you can somehow ignore all the Izzie/Denny stuff -- I know, it's hard, but at least most of it didn't involve the other characters and was therefore fast-forwardable -- and accept the disposition of the appendectomy disaster, then there were some good things here, like Sloan's heart growing three sizes as he helped the sleepwalker's daughter, or Bailey and Callie talking about their lousy years and their love of surgery, or Joshua Malina making a non-Sorkin appearance to give his wife some, uh, poo. And even the appy subplot worked up until the writers and the Chief let the residents off the hook for it, as it was as creepy and scary as intended. But where the early episodes of this season featured really strong material marred by the occasional bit of silliness, the stupid parts are starting to overwhelm the rest.

Getting back to "ER," I was surprised by how well Brenner's confession of abuse worked. They'd been telegraphing all episode that he had been molested as a kid, and Brenner in general is a character I have little use for, but David Lyons put his all into what could have been standard sweeps/awards show bait, and intercutting it with seeing the music teacher show his true colors had the desired effect. Plus, it helped that Brenner was confessing to Archie, as Scott Grimes tends to make every scene he's in better lately. (The best thing in last week's episode was Archie's stunned reaction to learning that Banfield had chosen to work in the same ER where her son died.)

Also, I have a phobia about stuff touching my eyes (it's the reason I never got contacts), and so watching Andrew and the others work on the guy's eye was one of the more squirm-inducing "ER" traumas I can remember.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "These Ties That Bind": Of course, I'm an excellent surgeon. Yeah.

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I take out my own appendix...

Sigh... they were doing so well this season, and then they had to go and give us an episode that was like a concentrated 44-minute burst of everything I hate about "Grey's Anatomy."

Where to begin? Maybe we start with the usually sublime Mary McDonnell doing her best Rain Man impression as the heart surgeon with Asperger's. I'll admit to some personal sensitivity on this issue as I have a lot of personal experience with people in my life who are on one point or another of the autistic spectrum, but all of McDonnell's scenes were played so broadly (and with the hateful cutesie-pooh, "You're supposed to laugh now!" music underscoring them) that my eyes rolled so far into the back of my head that I can't actually see the computer monitor right now. (Thank goodness for that touch-typing class I took in 10th grade.) It was like watching an episode of "Boston Legal," where even the characters who don't have Asperger's act like they do to suit David E. Kelley's bizarre comic sensibilities. And for her diagnosis to come as a complete surprise to Bailey? Really? I want to hold out some hope for the later episodes of this arc, but this was an awful start.

Or maybe I should start with the introduction of Melissa George as Meredith's old friend Sadie. Ooooh, she's damaged! And sexy! She takes off her top and then eagerly cuts herself for the other interns! That's hot! George tends to inspire a lot of hatred, stemming largely from her time on "Alias" (one of the worst-conceived characters in the history of anything), and while she was one of the weaker links on "In Treatment" (where she was also playing a surgical intern), the format of that show allowed the writers and George to go in-depth about her character's demons in a way that "Grey's" just can't. Eye-roll number two, and that's not even counting the whole secret cutting society the interns have created, which really makes all our resident characters (and the Chief, and everyone else in authority) look bad for not even trying to teach these poor boobs.

Or I could have led with Callie's breakdown in the OR, which was meant as a big emotional moment in showing her dealing with the abrupt departure of Hahn (apparently imposed on the show by outside forces), but just seemed silly. There's a line between letting characters work out their personal problems in the course of their work and just turning the medical stuff into an opportunity for the characters to cry in unusual situations, and this was the latter. Eye roll number three.

But, really, where else could one begin in complaining about this episode then the moment where Izzie reaches out to touch Denny's ghost and he's real? No matter where this story is going (and no discussing rumors you've heard or read about it, because they're out there, and we don't do spoilers here), it's stupid. It's beyond stupid. I'm not even sure I have eyeballs anymore after seeing that stuff.

This was the kind of episode that makes me reluctant to buy into any future episodes that I like, because I'm always going to fear that one like this will turn up soon after to sucker punch me. Blech.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy, "Rise Up": Hahn solo

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I get some cadavers...

I don't think I ever need to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan's face or hear the words "Denny Duquette" ever again. I appreciated that Erica Hahn said virtually everything about Izzie's continued employment that a lot of us were howling about back during the original storyline, but since Izzie's obviously not going anywhere, why keep picking at this particular scab?

Unfortunately, Dr. Hahn is going somewhere, and will not be seen on the show again. Given that this was the last episode Brooke Smith before was abruptly fired, I suppose we're supposed to assume that Erica will resign in disgust, off-camera, but not report the hospital to UNOS. What a lame exit. Unless Smith herself was causing problems, ala Isaiah Washington -- and that's not at all what I'm hearing -- then it's self-defeating to dump her without giving her a proper on-screen departure. Even if the ABC executives were all grossed out by two girls kissing or whatever (because, you know, who wants to see that?), this episode provided the perfect opportunity to get rid of the character without actually having to bring up her sexuality again. Even if you ignore the apparent close-mindedness of the move, it was just a stupid business and creative decision.

Beyond those two irritations, there was actually a lot to like about "Rise Up." Start with Bailey and McDreamy's case, which was the season's latest great showcase for familiar TV faces of a certain age -- in this case, Bonnie Bartlett and George Coe. In a weird way, "Grey's Anatomy" is starting to turn into a latter-day "Love Boat," in that "The Love Boat" used to feature three stories an episode breaking down along demographic lines (one young couple, one middle-aged couple, one older couple), which not only provided something for everyone in the audience, but also provided occasional employment for aging actors who were no longer in demand for steady work. Based on how the Emmy guest actor nominations are dominated by familiar faces who have a lot of friends in the Academy, I wouldn't be surprised to see next year's categories dominated by "Grey's" guests like Coe, Bartlett, Bernadette Peters and Daniel J. Travanti. Coe's despair at his wife's impending death -- and Bailey's own refusal to let go -- was one of the season's most touching moments, and one of the rare times when the obvious parallel between the patient's problem and the doctor's didn't bug me.

Meanwhile, Kevin McKidd got to tear into Cristina and Karev for treating surgery like a competitive sport when it should really about lifesaving. These sorts of lectures, which the show does once or twice a season, are always walking a fine line -- yes, it's appalling on an objective level how the docs behave sometimes, but the competition is also one of the show's most distinct and entertaining aspects -- but this was a good one, and made better by Cristina standing up to Hunt and telling him he might not want to be so quick to judge.

So, a mixed bag, with real-world idiocy and the resurrection of a storyline I despised marring what was otherwise another solid episode for this "Grey's" comeback season.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Grey's Anatomy: It's, like, how much less gay could it be? And the answer is... none. None less gay.

Okay, this is massively uncool if true: Ausiello and Kristin are both reporting that the "Grey's Anatomy" producers were ordered to dump both the Callie/Erica lesbian storyline and actress Brooke Smith, who plays Erica Hahn, immediately -- as in, Smith's last episode is this Thursday's, and she doesn't even get a proper goodbye of any kind. Ausiello has Smith's take on getting fired over gay panic, while Kristin reports that Melissa George's character, who will show up in a few weeks, was originally written as bisexual but that the "Grey's" writers were ordered to eliminate that aspect of her character as much as possible.

Now, here's some genuine, non-Alanis irony: Shonda Rhimes and company cook up this storyline because they needed to give Smith and Sara Ramirez something to do, and if these reports are true, then it led to Smith losing her job altogether. Sigh... Click here to read the full post

ER & Grey's Anatomy: GI Joe, Anatomy Jane and Bionic Ray

Reviewing the two Thursday medical shows together seems to be working, so spoilers for "Grey's Anatomy" and then "ER" coming up just as soon as I find some unkosher animals to stab...

You know "Grey's Anatomy" is getting it right right these days where they feature an episode where Izzie is freaking out about the health of animals and it doesn't bother me.

Of course, Kevin McKidd getting all stabby with the pigs fit better in a medical context than Izzie playing amateur veterinarian with that deer last season. But beyond that, I think the show's achieving a very nice balance of comedy and pathos, of having characters do and say wacky things without undermining them.

I'm glad to have McKidd back, and to see his conflict with McDreamy and McSteamy get resolved in a shockingly adult manner, not only for this show, but for any medical show. On "ER" (which I'll get to in a minute), it usually takes the hot-headed newbie at least a half a season, if not several seasons, before he starts seeing eye to eye with the longtime regulars; here they came to an understanding by the end of the hour.

And I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying Callie and Erica's girl-on-girl angst. Though it was obviously conceived in order to give those two actresses something to do, it turned out to be something good to do. Everytime I think that story's in danger of taking a stupid turn, we get a moment like Erica's speech about getting glasses (very fine work by Brooke Smith), or McSteamy turning out to be useful for something other than sex, or Erica not flipping out at learning that Callie had been sleeping with McSteamy to calm herself.

And, of course, any episode that gives Chandra Wilson and James Pickens a lot of meaty material, both together and apart, is okay in my book.

As for "ER," not one of the better ones this season in my book. Since I watched very little of the Shane West era, the return of Ray didn't mean a whole lot for me. (Also, I could have done without the constant full-body camera pans down to show his various artificial legs. We get it: modern special effects are really awesome!)

I'm also getting impatient waiting for Dr. Banfield to reveal her deep dark secret and then have her predestined mellowing out. Since she's only going to be on the show for one season (and a slightly abbreviated one, at that), they can't play out her character arc at the same pace they did with, say, Pratt or Dr. Aussie. (Who I totally don't buy as a good guy, all of a sudden. They should have let him stay a bastard, Romano-style.)

Sam becoming the latest "ER" nurse (or hospital show nurse in general) to get frustrated at being treated like a second-class citizen when she knows more than half the doctors was also not very inspired.

Ah, well. I assume a lot of my Banfield problems will be resolved in the much-hyped Dr. Greene flashback episode we're getting in a couple of weeks. But if they decide to kill Mark again in that episode, I am going to lodge a formal complaint.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Mid-Friday catch-up: Grey's Anatomy, ER and Life on Mars

Quick spoilers for last night's episodes of, in order, "Grey's Anatomy," "ER" and "Life on Mars" coming up just as soon as I make sure my floor is clean...

"Grey's Anatomy" continues its recent streak of solid, back-to-basics episodes. The things that either annoy me or that I don't care about (say, the Mer/Der tension) are things I never liked in the first place, while there's been much more focus on the part of the show that I do enjoy, like the cutthroat nature of the surgical program (the cafeteria scene was a highlight) or relationship stories that don't make me want to slit my throat (like Callie turning to McSteamy for sub-equatorial advice, a decision that will no doubt backfire amusingly in an episode or two). Plus, they continue to do a stellar job of guest casting. How perfect was Carl Lumbly as the estranged dad?

Speaking of perfect guest casting of African-American actors of a certain age, it was a pleasure to see Glynn Turman show up on "ER," though he didn't have as much to do as I would have liked. (For those of you who were as knocked out as I was by Turman's Emmy-winning appearances on "In Treatment," keep an eye out for "Scrubs" when it returns: Bill Lawrence and Zach Braff were just as blown away by Turman's work there and crafted a whole episode around him.)

The rest of the episode was a mixed bag. It's always a pleasure to watch Angela Bassett beat people up (if the "X-Men" movies had been made even a few years earlier, she would have been a perfect, studio-acceptable choice to play Storm), and the necessary softening of Dr. Banfield is beginning. On the other hand, even if every commercial for hadn't screamed that the little sister was eeeeeevil!, the episode way telegraphed it, which ruined what should have been a wonderfully creepy moment when her true sociopathic colors came out at the end.

Also, two annoying things from a longtime "ER" fan standpoint. First, I'm sure the show has occasionally recycled guest stars (though never with the frequency of an "NYPD Blue" or "Law & Order"), but it bugged me to see Molly Price as the mom, since I had only recent channel-surfed past the "ER"/"Third Watch" crossover where Susan Lewis goes to New York so Yoakas and Bosco can help her find her sister. Second, late in the hour there was a plug for NBC's website where Linda Cardellini asked, while discussing a poll about best "ER" characters of all time, "Dr. Ross or Dr. Gates? It's a tough question." Um, no. Stamos has been just fine the last few years, but no. Not even in the same ballpark.

Finally, the ratings for "Life on Mars" continue to slide right along with my interest in it. I continue to enjoy some of the '70s touches -- the unexpected song choices, the "Starsky & Hutch"-esque score, Michael Imperioli's amazing mustache -- but the heart of the show is starting to feel as thin as I began to find the British show by its second season. It's just too close to an actual '70s cop show -- and a middle-of-the-road one, at that -- for me to stick around much longer, cool music and moostashes or no. This show needs some weird in a hurry.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post