'Grey's Anatomy,'
tuckered out from love
It's hard to keep track of who's been with whom
By Tom Conroy
May 20, 2010
“Grey’s Anatomy” was not the first primetime hospital drama to be largely about sex and love (in that order), but when it debuted back in 2004, it took intrastaff hanky-panky to a whole new level.
Although the show’s focus on female desire was novel for a while, “Grey’s” eventually succumbed to a problem common among ensemble series that last for several seasons: Too many of the regular characters have had more than one relationship with other regulars.
Even fans sometimes find it hard to remember who is getting interested in whom while growing tired of someone else. As the show’s flagging ratings indicate, many of those fans are growing tired too.
Concluding tonight with a two-hour episode at 9 p.m. on ABC, the show’s sixth season has largely been a rehash of the show’s overarching theme: Should people settle for an adequate romantic relationship or hold out for a soul mate?
That question dominated the first five seasons, mostly through the relationship between the show’s eponymous young doctor, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), and her on-again, off-again colleague Derek, a.k.a. McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey). But Meredith’s dithering about her commitment issues eventually became plain annoying, and they got married.
Sad to say, marriage has turned their relationship from frustrating to boring. The main drama in the McDreamy household has revolved around whether Meredith is sufficiently supportive of Derek in his new role as chief of surgery.
That has left the other members of the show’s substantial — and growing — cast to take up the slack. As last week’s episode showed, most of them are obsessed with the same issue that Meredith and Derek beat to death: Are they ready to commit?
Last week, to illustrate the theme of finding one’s soul mate, an elderly patient (Marion Ross of “Happy Days”) was coincidentally reunited with her one true love (Allan Mandell), who had gone on to marry her best friend. Though Seattle Grace is a very busy hospital, nearly all of the doctors had time to stand around moony-eyed while the old folks talked about the magic of their one night together 50 years before.
That sent the series regulars into a tizzy of doubt about their own current loves. Sloan (Eric Dane) realized he still loved Lexie (Chyler Leigh), even though she had been dating Karev (Justin Chambers) and he had been dating Teddy (Kim Raver), who walked in on him during a one-night stand with Reed (Nora Zehetner). Cristina (Sandra Oh) confronted her boyfriend, Owen (Kevin McKidd), about his soul-mate-like relationship with Teddy.
When the doctors weren’t obsessing over their own feelings, they were obsessing over other people’s feelings. Callie (Sara Ramirez) got involved in the Sloan-Lexie-Karev-Teddy rectangle, but Sloan pointed out to her that she was really processing her own regret over breaking up with Arizona (Jessica Capshaw).
Though the talented cast struggles to keep all this seeming fresh, they’re no longer helped by the show’s dialogue, which in six seasons has gone from distinctive to mannered. Jammed with long compound nouns and adjectives, these are the sort of lines that would never have been uttered by a human voice if they hadn’t first appeared on a computer screen.
“You will not look at me with the I’ve-seen-you-naked eyes at work,” Bailey (Chandra Wilson) tells her new in-house lover.
“I’m acting like a guy who can stick with nice and normal and healthy,” Karev says of his relationship with Lexie.
Meredith’s voice-over summaries of what we’re meant to learn from the episode are about as profound and insightful as Mary Alice’s on “Desperate Housewives”; that is, not very.
Usually at least one of the patients’ subplots has nothing to do with sex. In this episode, two female burn victims realized that they were tired of talking and thinking positively.
“I can’t watch romantic comedies anymore,” one of them told the other, “because I just want to yell at the women onscreen: ‘You can’t find Mr. Right? That’s your biggest problem?’ ”
The producers must be aware that the character was speaking for many frustrated viewers. But there’s hope for viewers who want to see some real problems: The promos for tonight’s season finale suggest that many characters’ lives will be in jeopardy.
For such a lovey-dovey show, “Grey’s” handles its rare action episodes remarkably well. Chances are this finale will have enough shake-ups and cliff-hangers to draw viewers back next fall. Whether romance-as-usual will keep them watching through another season is another question.
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