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Beware the tricks of Grey’s Anatomy, warns David Knox.
I know I’m supposed to like Grey’s Anatomy. Everybody else does. But I always feel like I’ve been hoodwinked by conniving tricks that try to manipulate my emotions, before I even realise it.
At its heart the show is an unabashed soap, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Medical dramas have been the staple of the genre since television began. General Hospital, Dr. Kildare, St. Elsewhere, Chicago Hope, the list is endless.
In Australia we’ve waited for the results from GP and All Saints. Grey’s has been so damned successful with its mix of medicine, melodrama and sex that Nine is determined to remake The Young Doctors.
What bothers me most about Grey’s is that it purports to be a medical drama, but unlike House or ER, where the disease-of-the-week takes centre stage, here they are the backdrop to romantic storylines.
Every medical scene pushes and pulls the romance of the central characters. Will Meredith go on a 48-hour weekend with Dr McDreamy? Will George tell Callie that he slept with Izzie? Will Cristina get over being dumped at the altar by Preston? Please, won’t somebody think of the patients?
Seriously, I wonder how anybody at Seattle Grace ever gets treated.
The only character with her eye on the ball is Dr Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), the hospital ‘nazi’.
As if the melodrama wasn’t obvious enough, they underscore key emotional scenes with ‘soft-rock’ just to prod your weeping. By then I’m about ready to throw my remote at the screen. What’s doubly frustrating is that the drama now has writers from Six Feet Under. They. Know. Better.
So why do I watch? It’s part obligation and part hope that it might surprise me. There are two key factors the show has added to television. One is diversity.
It’s great to see so many multi-racial characters in a US prime time series, and the show has made a conscious effort to cast ‘blind’. The other cultural shift was in its handling of the disgraceful incident related to Isaiah Washington’s off-camera homophobia.
He got the chop, and rightly so. T.R. Knight remains, bless him, accepted by the audience as a heterosexual character with romantic storylines. That’s acting.
Frankly, if I am sideswiped by a bus I’d rather wind up with House than Grey’s Anatomy. He might bitch at me, but at least I know I’d be cured.
Grey’s Anatomy airs at 8:30pm Sundays on Seven.
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