Dear Grey’s Anatomy,
I think it’s over.
Meredith: Me, me, me, blah, blah, me, me. Christina: Blah, blah, me, me, me, scalpel, me, me, blah.
The warning signs are there. I rarely catch the show when it airs live and when I do eventually watch it, it’s primarily in an effort to clean out the DVR. Also, like when I broke up with American Idol last year, I’ve found that I can’t just sit there and watch the show. I have to do about twenty other things at the same time. So while Meredith and McDreamy are having their seventieth fight about nothing, I’m checking my e-mail compulsively, boiling an egg, doing crunches, learning the ukelele and preparing a cucumber mask.
Remember when we first met? You combined with Desperate Housewives for a Sunday night girl-power force to be reckoned with. You defied my expectations of being just another medical soap — having just enough snark to keep things interesting and just enough camp to stay crappily entertaining. It was just like the beginnings of a real-life fledgling romance — we had fun when we first started seeing each other, revelling in that honeymooney, “what’s your middle name” phase where everything is exciting and new. There were good times — the bomb in the dude’s chest episode, the Izzie-Karev will-they-won’t-they, etc. But soon, things got to be repetitive. Now, what were once minor irritations have snowballed into grating dealbreakers. And characters who used to be quirky have now become assholes (Stevens, I’m looking at you).
Meredith drowned and melodramatically and manipulatively came back to life. Izzie became the most detestable character on network TV. I’ve gotten to wonder about Dr. Bailey — is she plainspoken and no nonsense (as I suspect the producers would like us to think) or is she just mean and cranky? And yelly. Even George has devolved from adorable hangdog to unsympathetic pushover.
Anyway, I think last week’s epic, two hour Grey’s episode-slash-Addison pilot was the last straw. It sounded great, in theory, to take the one character who hadn’t flown off the rails and put her in her own show. New characters, new feel, completely baggage-free (as far as Seattle Grace characters go), hot hot Taye Diggs — sounds great, right?
“So do you still keep in touch with the old Wings crew? Even Crystal Bernard?”
However, the show really seems to be vying for the late thirties, early forties female demographic — for women who are single and hating it or married and bored. And God bless the late thirties, early forties women — but I, for one, am out. Their audience choice was painfully clear in the one scene where Addison and the other hens at the doctor’s office gathered at a strategic time so that they could and ogle Veronica Mars’ Piz (whatever his name is on the show) as he came in, wet, bare-chested and carrying a surfboard. It was all reminiscent of that Lucky Vanous Diet Coke commercial, only grosser and morally ambiguous. Not that I don’t think Piz is attractive and not that I wouldn’t decapitate a hobo to have his abs, but the scene just made it clear what the show was going to be about and who they were trying to please.
I am a fan of the medical drama. I am a gay man. I am a connoisseur of television originally intended for a female audience (Oxygen Network! Holla!). But I just can’t endorse this.
Now, don’t hold it against me if it takes a while to give up on these shows; I may just continue watching and hating it. We’ll just have to see how things go. But consider my dissatisfaction noted. We’ve turned a corner in our relationship.
PS – my separation with Grey’s might be pleasing to the Grey’s commenter brigade. Kids, one day when you’re older we’ll have to sit down and have a conversation about irony and camp. For now, just stay in school and get back to studying for that Civil War quiz in U.S. History (hint: the North wins).
You know what doesn’t kick ass any more? 24. I can’t believe how quickly this show nosedived. The producers keep talking about how they’re going to shake things up next year, but honestly, if they were capable of bringing any sort of freshness or insight to Jack’s world, don’t you think they would’ve done that this season? Why would they purposely be lazy and tired if they had any new ideas at all?
