Monday, February 27, 2006

Watched Grey's Anatomy last night. So Meredith Grey feels bad she slept with George. "I did a terrible thing," she repeats, as if that's an excuse. But makes no effort to undo the damage. And then proceeds to set up a clandestine "friendly" date with Derek Shepherd.

Fairly selfish, dishonorable behavior, huh?

I wonder if giving George the v.o. this Sunday (and a much more down-to-earth one than Meredith usually gets), and making no effort to clean up Meredith's toxicity, means they're moving away from Meredith as central character. (Tough when you've called the thing "Grey's Anatomy".) Because she is certainly the least attractive of all the characters, and has the least interesting problems.

Probably not. The writers at Grey Matter, the promotional GA writer's blog, seem to like her just fine. And I'm probably older than the show's demographic. And women probably forgive Meredith for her behavior the way guys forgive Bruce Willis's characters for theirs.

But I can imagine a showrunner trying to wean her audience off a main character she's no longer in love with, or whom she made into a main character only because she knew network expected the main character to be a gorgeous, romantic white chick. 'Cause now that the show's a hit, and everyone is digging Burke and Christina and Bailey and Addison and the others... you can start to sideline the skinny white chick. Not like network's going to take the show away from Shonda, know what I'm saying?

8:03 AM

7 Comments:

The network's not going to get rid of Shonda, but if they were to pick up her female-journalists-travel-the-country pilot, she might be less interested in Meredith. Plus she's mentioned in interviews she doesn't run the writer's room - she doesn't even go in most days -- so maybe if Shonda had her new project, the remaining showrunner can downplay Meredith as much as possible.

By  RT, at 9:45 AM  

In general, I like the show.

But, what I'm noticing is - they tend to pick a topic (i.e. "karma" this week) and then hammer it, mercilessly, into the heads of the audience. Every situation has to do with the topic of the week, nearly every character will reference it in the episode.

It seems so heavy-handed and obvious - and for me, as a viewer, it's a real turnoff. It gets in the way of the story (I find myself thinking, "yeah yeah, karma, blah blah blah - now please get back to the story!").

Is it just me, or is this universally annoying? And - when you're writing - how do you find that line between a good theme that underlies everything and brings a sense of unity to your story, versus - beating your viewers senseless with something that is so obvious, you'd have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to miss it?

About the whole George and Meredith thing, I don't know. It seemed a bit unbelievable to me - not just that it happened, but *how* it happened, and the crying at the end. As upset as she supposedly was, wouldn't you imagine that she'd just burst out crying from the moment George went through his, "I will always love you" speech? And, even given the circumstances - I have trouble seeing George just walking out on her in tears. So, the whole thing was kind of a disappointment for me.

By  Nancy B., at 9:55 AM  

I think it would be a good idea to move away from Meredith as the main character. She's the least intresting and they make her look all washed out with the make-up they put her in. Everyone else on the show looks great.

Maybe they can change the name of the show to Gray's Anatomy not Grey's Anatomy and kill her off.

By  Cecil E. Rudd, at 11:33 AM  

I'm not a huge fan of the show, but I do like it. I especially like the fact that Meredith screws up - and big. If she makes a mistake, then it isn't trivial.

We've all done it at one point or another in our lives -- dated, slept with or married the wrong person. Perhaps we've made a decision that's cost us a friendship or possibly even a life.

If you look at the overall arc of the stories, I think we can say she's being deconstructed - torn down to the bone. The title gives it all away - this show is about picking apart Meredith Grey. To see what makes her tick.

I think we're just on the down-swing of her story, and that as we progress and learn about Meredith we'll see she's learning a lot about herself. She'll start making better, more thoughtful decisions; but if not, she'll accept the consequences of those decisions.

By  Bill Cunningham, at 12:38 PM  

Yeah. Um. the whole "Can we kill/de-emphasize Meredith" thing is coming dangerously close to fanfic territory.

From the kind of person that Meredith has been up to now, what she did in sleeping with George wasn't the slightest bit surprising -- and the beauty of it, is that they gave the clean, matter-of-fact summation of that behavior to Alex. Straight up. The guy may not be as wildly sensitive as the rest of them -- but he sure has Meredith's number.

This is a great clean and rinse plot. It allows both George, and hopefully, Meredith, to go off in other directions.

And to answer the question about karma and hammering the theme, well, considering the fact that the ratings for Grey's keep going up, and it's now in Mega-hit rather than 'strong freshman' territory, I would say nope -- not a lot of other people are having your concerns re: the heavy-handedness of presenting the themes.

Six Feet, Scrubs, Lost, Rescue Me -- all have been heavy handed with their exploration of theme. If you think it's heavy handed, it's likely because you're thinking like a civilian.

And I SO knew they were going to switch the V/O eventually -- the writers for weeks now have been seemingly writing away from it. I think it's a device they feel saddled with at this point.

With the strong ensemble in the show, I would lay money you'll see an Izzie and a Yang V/O eventually.

But never McDreamy. Eff him.

By  DMc, at 3:54 PM  

IN the above, I mean,

"it's likely that you're NOT thinking like a civilian..."

(IE: people who read screenwriting blogs are not necessarily your great average viewer...)

I'm tired.

By  DMc, at 3:57 PM  

Oh, bite me.

I love Meredith Grey. And I'm older than you. And a writer as well.

She's human. She makes mistakes. She fucks up. Big time.

You mentioned in your interview being in a toxic relationship. Well?

Don't you forgive yourself for it?

Then how about cutting the woman a little slack... She's a frigging intern, for God's sake, working 100 hours a week. Her mom's in a home, and she's in love with McDreamy, who's got a wife, and her McDog. And she made a mistake and slept with her roommate.

So she screwed up.

Haven't you ever slept with precisely the wrong person, and had to pay an enormous price for it? Sometimes that's the only way we grow up. Which, if I follow your comments, is precisely what you've been bitching and moaning about, about Meredith.

Geez, you'd think you were a fan of the show or something. Like the rest of us. * smiles *

Jesse Wendel
Seattle

By  Jesse Wendel, at 4:44 PM  

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