I came home from the bar where my friends and I had watched this year's Super Bowl (the annual ad review for which will be coming, most likely, Thursday), and settled down for the megahyped episode of Grey's Anatomy that I'd been looking forward to for so long. And by "so long," I mean a week.
How disappointed I was.
Just when I thought things had gotten to be very good, as I wrote last week, my favorite show to criticize (in the academic, not negative, definition) goes off and throws in the following qualities:
a) An implausibly coincidental instance of two family members being in the hospital for different reasons, and without each other knowing.
b) A circumstance by which the wrong move might end up with destroying the hospital and killing dozens or more.
c) A paramedic who ends up far more involved than she'd planned.
Recognize them? That's right, it's every ER episode ever televised. There's a reason I watch and write about Grey's Anatomy. It's because the damn show ISN'T ER, or any other cookie-cutter TV drama. The show is about interpersonal relationships, or at least it's supposed to be, and except for some hastily-thrown-in "OMG I AM IN LOVE WITH RONNIE MILLER FROM CAN'T BUY ME LOVE" dialogue or Izzy, the model-turned doctor, bitching about not getting laid, there wasn't a whole lot of that happening here.
It's pretty clear what happened, of course. ABC told the Grey's producers to write a post-Super Bowl-worthy episode full of excitement and "drama." Something to hook all the people who are oblivious to this fantastic show, since this time last year it was a midseason replacement and was about two episodes in. Thus, the writers constructed this two-part episode (not-so-cleverly titled "It's the end of the world" [part one] and "as we know it" [part two, next week]) full of excitement and stimulation. And snapping bras.
Grey's Anatomy is different, and its difference is what warranted my adding it to a very full person TV viewing schedule. Tonight's episode was your typical hospital drama. Here's hoping next week brings back a plot driven by the characters and not extraordinarily improbable external factors.
Oooh! I like this format!