29.3.15
The Medical Magic of ABC's Grey's Anatomy
9:19 AM
Since 2005, ABC's Grey's Anatomy has been must-see television for Americans across the country. The medical dramedy initially follows the lives of several interns, residents and attendings at Seattle Grace Hospital as their professional and personal lives unfold. The first big medical series hit since ER, the show has a massive following with excellent humor and poignant drama, on and off set.
The main character of ABC's Grey's Anatomy is Meredith Grey. Self-described as dark and twisty, she's a down to earth, ambitious intern with two surgeons for parents who never got along. Working in the shadow of her mother, Ellis Grey, who was a world renown surgeon that practiced at Seattle Grace until her Alzheimers became unmanageable, Meredith shows a tremendous amount of promise. In the beginning of the first season, we find out that the night before she began her internship, she got hammered at a bar and took a man home. This man, as it turns out, is also an attending at the hospital named Derek Shepard, affectionately referred to by Meredith's fellow interns as McDreamy.
Though the romance between Meredith and Derek (referred to by fans as MerDer) is an implausible one, it progresses nicely with ABC's Grey's Anatomy. The two go back and forth, as Derek turns out to be married and seeking a divorce, and Meredith's daddy issues often complicate the emotional honesty of the relationship. Meredith also experiences two major life threatening experiences while working, and through the process, is able to come to a place where she is willing to try to make things work with Derek. They finally become engaged, but at the last second, instead of going through with the wedding, they sacrifice their wedding plans to allow a dying friend experience a dream wedding to her boyfriend. They are uninterested in planning an elaborate wedding again, and so they perform their own nuptials by writing down their vows on a post-it and signing them as a personal contract between the two of them.
MerDer's romantic drama often takes center stage in ABC's Grey's Anatomy, but there's plenty of behind the scenes drama as well. Most notably, Isaiah Washington, the actor playing attending heart surgeon Burke, was dismissed from the show after using homophobic slurs about a cast mate. Katherine Heigl also made waves after refusing an Emmy nomination because she felt the writing for her character did not merit the attention. However, despite this behind the scene's drama, ABC's Grey's Anatomy continues to thrive.