'Grey's Anatomy'– Not just another medical drama

Madelaine de la Ossa / Reviewer

It's Sunday night at 10 p.m., and everybody rushes to the common area to get a good spot on the couch. "Grey's Anatomy" is on, so everything else can wait. This scenario might sound familiar to more than a few Elon students who, like myself, are now hooked on ABC's newest hit.

The show focuses on the lives of a group of young surgical residents in Seattle Grace Hospital, one of the toughest surgical residency programs in the nation. It's a drama centered not only on the professional, but also personal, lives of the five main characters.

It has the drama and intensity of medical plots, but, unlike the typical doctor soap series, the episodes are mixed with the funny, sexy and sometimes painful life dilemmas as the interns try to make their way in the complicated world of medicine.

The title character, played by Ellen Pompeo, is Dr. Meredith Grey. She is a beautiful and talented first-year intern whose mother, now suffering from senile dementia, was once a renowned surgeon and a legend in the medical field.

She and her fellow first-year interns Cristina Yang, Izzie Stevens, George O'Malley and Alex Karev, try to maintain a friendship while surviving in an atmosphere of stressful competition that they must face every day in the hospital.

As if being resident interns and saving lives were not complicated enough, in this series they also have to deal with their personal dilemmas, such as sneaky love relationships and the ups and downs of their personal lives.  Sometimes it is even hard to keep up with all the drama, but it seems like the audience just can't get enough of it. The show is now on its second season, and it has already won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe. The ratings just keep going up.

Every once in awhile, a new show comes along and hits right on target, managing to get half the school glued to their televisions for the 30 or 60 minute time slot. This time, it is "Grey's Anatomy."

This show, created by Shonda Rhimes, seems to be having the success that other series like "Sex and the City," "The Sopranos" and "The O.C." have recently had among college students and young adults.

Meredith is the narrator of the episodes, and one of the things that people seem to enjoy so much about the show is the way that the story is told.  The writing staff creates interesting scripts and quotes that will leave you thinking about different life situations that we all can relate to. For example, Meredith starts one episode in Season One by saying:

"I don't know why we put things off. But if I had to guess, I'd say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of rejection.  Sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, any decision, because what if you're wrong?"

The good thing about Grey's Anatomy is that in addition to being funny, dramatic and entertaining, you can even learn at least a few things about the way things are done in a hospital.

To some of us, it brings up the memory of that one moment in our lives when the thought of becoming a doctor crossed our minds. Even if it was in kindergarten when the teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up.

Although Grey's Anatomy is a soapy drama, it has enough medical context to keep it from being just a guilty pleasure.

Contact Madelaine de la Ossa at pendulum@elon.edu or 278-7247.

Photo courtesy of KRT Campus

On the hospital set of "Grey's Anatomy."

Fun facts about "Grey's Anatomy"

-All Season One episode titles, except for "The Self Destruct Button," are titles of popular songs.

-The show's title itself is a reference to the famous anatomy book "Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body," by Henry Gray.