The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Arts February 24, 2006

Grey’s Condition Terminal
New Show Ain’t No Scrubs

Television does not need more of the following dramas: medical, legal or police procedurals. But if creators insist on overloading networks with these bruised horse cadavers (studio execs really prefer fruit baskets), then I beseech them to follow in the steps of shows like Scrubs and try something fresh.

When I first saw Scrubs, my only complaint was about the conclusions to otherwise brilliant episodes — the bookended moral metaphors sometimes seemed a bit too somber for a half-hour comedy. I wondered if these endings would work if Scrubs was an hour long and could therefore come to the resolution at a more gradual pace. Grey’s Anatomy is the hour-long Scrubs minus the imagination, clever writing, strong characters and fantastic ensemble.

Instead of Zach Braff’s Dr. John Dorian, we get Dr. Meredith Grey (oh my God! Grey’s Anatomy! I just got that!) played by failed Renee Zellweger clone, Ellen Pompeo. Meredith dispenses the same life-lesson bookends as she, like Dorian, progresses through a brutal residency.

However, while Dorian’s training appears standard, we’re told that Meredith’s program is highly competitive and likely to produce only a few graduates. But the show never tells us what makes this program so special. Other than wanting to perform surgeries all the time, these interns do the same work as the interns on Scrubs. Since the uniqueness of this program is never touched on in the nine episodes that comprise the first season, I doubt we’ll ever find out why it’s so special.

What really kills Grey’s Anatomy is that, as a show, it’s really nothing special. None of the characters or cases have the flair of FOX’s House, M.D. and the writing and direction are stale and methodic compared to the exuberant Scrubs.

While some of the characters are interesting (Sandra Oh as a cold-hearted intern, Isaiah Washington as a stoic attendant), others have such poor definition that they seem more like frequently reappearing background characters as opposed to leading members of the cast. The show suffers even more since the leading actress Pompeo is one of these 0.5-dimensional characters.

The show does have its strong points. There’s the lovely and talented Katherine Heigl as Izzie Stevens, who will probably be the first to leave the cast for a movie career, the sometimes-lovable, sometimes-grating George O’ Malley played by T.R. Knight and a pretty solid soundtrack (although my taste in music is pretty wretched so please take it with a grain of salt; the grain of salt has better musical taste).

But these positive aspects still don’t bring the show anywhere close to something worth watching. I accept that this show may not be for me. If you’re a fan of E.R., you’ll probably enjoy it. I think medical dramas make for easy drama since they always involve life and death situations, but personally I’ll take the courtroom over the emergency room as I find morality more interesting than mortality (eat it, Sharpton).
 
 

   

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