> March 25, 2005
> TV WEEKEND | 'GREY'S ANATOMY'
> Tales of Sex and Surgery
> By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

> ow that "Sex and the City" is off the air and "ER" is on its last
legs,
> ABC has concocted a drama that tries to be a little bit of both: on
> "Grey's Anatomy," alluring young interns compete to become surgeons -
> "Sex and the City Hospital."

> And that is not a bad combination. In this age of "Desperate
> Housewives" and "The O.C.," it is refreshing to see a television show
> whose heroines aspire to meaningful work as well as meaningless sex.
> Certainly that seems to be the vocation of Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen
> Pompeo), who narrates the series in a soft, Carrie Bradshawesque
> voice-over. In the premiere episode Sunday night, Meredith wakes up,
> callously tosses out the handsome stranger she picked up at a bar the
> night before and races to her first day at Seattle Grace Hospital.
Her
> one-night stand, of course, turns out to be Derek Shepherd (Patrick
> Dempsey), a surgeon and her boss.

> Medical shows are making a comeback after years when "ER" was the
only
> place to enjoy a gushing kidney transplant. They are a prime-time
> perennial: like crime shows, hospital dramas are one of the few
> plausible backdrops for life-and-death crises, adrenaline-driven
action
> and lots of gore (though it is a credit to the writers of "Desperate
> Housewives" that each week they manage to cram all that into a
suburban
> cul-de-sac).

> Television doctors also hold a special appeal in these days of
> insurance-driven treatment and H.M.O. diagnoses: they indulge the
> fantasy that physicians are brilliant risk-takers who defy the system
> and pay attention to the patient, much the way that "CSI"-style shows
> feed the delusion that civil servants are zealous brainiacs who never
> take vacations.

> "Scrubs," an NBC sitcom, began in 2001, and this year two other
> hospital dramas have popped up on prime time. "Medical Investigation"
> on NBC seeks to be a "CSI" for living victims: a crack team from the
> National Institutes of Health identifies mysterious symptoms and
stamps
> out scary epidemics. That show is painfully earnest and a bit of a
> bore. Fox does better with "House," a show whose hero, Dr. Gregory
> House (Hugh Laurie), is a malevolent Marcus Welby: each week he
> crankily ferrets out the hidden cause of a patient's deadly,
> unexplained symptoms while terrorizing the patient's family and
> browbeating his young acolytes.

> "Grey's Anatomy" is a Girl Power version of "ER," focusing as much on
> the interns' love lives and career ambitions as it does on the
> patients' treatment. It is an unsatirical update on "Ally McBeal,"
and
> has a similar sensibility to "The American Embassy," a Fox drama
about
> an American woman who escapes a bad relationship by moving to London
to
> work as a diplomat. Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the executive
> producers of "Grey's Anatomy," James D. Parriott, was a creator of
that
> show. (Fox pulled "The American Embassy" after a few episodes.)

> Mostly, however, the female interns on "Grey's Anatomy" are a
> postfeminist version of the heroines of Rona Jaffe's 1958 novel, "The
> Best of Everything." Instead of being torn between career and
marriage,
> these bright young things agonize over which specialty to pursue:
> cardiovascular surgery or neurosurgery. (Romance, like take-out
pizza,
> is consumed on the run.)

> Surgery is known as "the game," and it is the interns' obsessive
quest
> to scrub in and get their surgical gloves bloodied. "The game,"
> Meredith says in a portentous, if inane, voice-over. "They say that a
> person either has what it takes to play the game, or they don't."
> (These must be the same people who say "Good things come in small
> packages" and "Beauty is as beauty does.")

> On her first, terrifying 48-hour shift, Meredith bonds with other
> freshly minted doctors who are as hazed and overworked as West Point
> cadets: Isobel (Izzie) Stevens (Katherine Heigl), an ethereal blond
> former lingerie model known to her peers as "Dr. Model," who is
> immediately assigned dozens of rectal exams by her scornful bosses;
and
> Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh, "Sideways"), a ferociously ambitious and
> hard-edged intern who always seems an inch away from smashing her
> helmet into some miscreant's skull.

> Two male interns hover around the female threesome: George O'Malley
(T.
> R. Knight), a sweet, goofy nerd who becomes their honorary sister,
and
> Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), an arrogant, bullying cad who is the
> intern everybody loves to hate.

> All five are kept in line by Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), a
> resident so fierce and unwelcoming she is known as "the Nazi." Dr.
> Bailey's cardinal rule is not to be awakened unless a patient is in
> extremis. ("Next time you wake me," she hisses at Izzie, "he'd better
> be so close to dead there's a tag on his toe.")

> There are no token blacks on "Grey's Anatomy." The three top surgeons
> who rule the interns with princely authority are all
African-Americans,
> and that sign of social advancement is presented as a given, without
> fanfare or comment. Similarly, female doctors seem to outnumber the
> men, and nobody on the show finds that remarkable.

> It turns out that Meredith has a reason for picking up strangers in
> bars: she has a secret that keeps her wary of commitment and
ambivalent
> about her career choice. Her mother is a famous surgeon who recently
> quit and left town. Meredith does not tell anyone that the legendary
> Dr. Grey actually has Alzheimer's, is living in a nearby nursing home
> and no longer always recognizes her own daughter. Her mother was a
> cold, brilliant workaholic; she does not remember Meredith but lights
> up at the name of a scrub nurse who worked at her side for years.

> Izzie has less success keeping her secret: on her first days on the
> ward, sexy photos she did for a glossy magazine race through the
> hospital faster than strep throat. She explains that modeling paid
her
> medical school bills, but even some patients are wary. A man
scheduled
> for prostate surgery refuses to be treated by a woman he last saw in
a
> bustier and thong.

> Ms. Oh steals every scene as Cristina, cynical and so crudely
ambitious
> she appalls even her hardened superiors. While Izzie keeps a mournful
> vigil over a breathing but brain-dead patient, Cristina wishes he
would
> hurry up and die so she can assist at the organ-harvesting surgery.

> "Grey's Anatomy" marks the return of women in white coats after a
long
> dry spell. And even viewers who don't track feminist trends on
> television may enjoy the sight of a quivering liver being lifted out
> for transplant and tenderly placed in a thermal picnic cooler.

> If you enjoyed the medical textbook, you'll love the television show.

> 'Grey's Anatomy'

> ABC, Sunday night at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time.

> Shonda Rhimes, creator and executive producer; Mark Gordon, James D.
> Parriott and Betsy Beers, executive producers.

> WITH: Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey), Patrick Dempsey (Derek Shepherd),
> Sandra Oh (Cristina Yang), Isaiah Washington (Preston Burke),
Katherine
> Heigl (Isobel Stevens), Justin Chambers (Alex Karev), T. R. Knight
> (George O'Malley), Chandra Wilson (Miranda Bailey), James Pickens Jr.
> (Richard Webber) and Callum Blue (Viper).

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