Grey's Anatomy - 20 years and still operating...
By Jonathan Black
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WOW. Hard to Believe it's Been 20 YEARS!!!
Once upon a time, Meredith & McDreamy had an inappropriate affair during her residency at "Seattle/Grace-Mercy/Sloan-Grey/Sloan Memorial Hospital. "
Yup, when the hospital has changed names 3 times during the ongoing and somewhat mysteriously-targeted tragedy of soap opera romance and post-ERish telenovela... You know it's time to check in and maybe break for commercial.
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But 20 years?
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I've spent 2 decades of my life invested in the lives of these characters. I've laughed with them, cried with them, cheered them on and become numb by exceptionally long moments of drawn-out dramatic suspense alongside the operating table just the same.
It's a show that's educated me on rare and unique medical conditions and predicaments. Yes, the medical cases are pulled from the pages of the best headlines imaginable. It's entertained me for countless days and nights that it aired both in primetime and through the recycling bin that comprises national cable syndication.
I suppose the only real question is - am I crazy for caring? Is my interest as a fan enthusiastic enough to be branded as Telephilia? Should it matter how involved viewers become in the fictional world of their favorite characters?
The answer is simple. It's all relative. Quite frankly, while it may seem like I can care more about a television program and it's non-existent impact on actual enveloping reality that's occurring in front of me or evoke a stronger emotional responses to the character-driven plot and production than I can echo in reply to the reality of current events and relationships through which I've exchanged excess time, dedication and energy towards - hmmm...
This is a prime example of Relative Psychology. The kicker is that your devotion and daily enjoyt in the lives of fictional strangers CAN, and will to some degree, outweigh the direct impact of the people, places and things which are RELATIVE to your daily life and future survival.
It's not illegal to have more empathy upon what equates to a figment of the imagination vs your objective and "shared" reality with others and is actually common. A quick skim over your Google Contacts will quickly flag the fact that while comprised of the people who are most important to playing a role in your life, the actual time you spend with them and interact in their 'worlds' to make them more than a noteworthy index of perfect strangers is something eye openingly depressing when left to analyze for too long.
The Drs and patients at Grey-Sloan Memorial have given me a wealth of memories that break the boundaries of 3rd/4th person omniscient POV and in my observation of them, relative to those elsewhere in my life, is something that I couldn't have been given otherwise by other means. Even if equal in the weight they carried, they wouldn't be equal in measure as emotional dynamics come into the equation and kill all room for logic as it stands.
Basically, I'm not crazy. I'm a Grey's Anatomy fan who happens to know that (careful-you can't unsee this fact once you take the red pill of real-world editing) "Alex" was digitally 'placed' into his various scenes during the pilot episode and didn't film any of it with the rest of the cast AND he wasn't originally written into character AT ALL, let alone to deliver the greenscreen-produced footage of the final cut which aired. Alex was actually an afterthought used to balance the scales of masculine/feminine dynamics in an otherwise female-driven cast. Sadly, George didn't count on the Bro Vote.
I also know that Christina Yang, while brilliant in her practice and execution of medical study, suffered briefly from 'reactive psychosis' with PTSD in response to surviving the hospital shooting as she somehow mechanically and flawlessly applied her surgical skills during the mental breakdown when she saved Derrick's life -- with a gun literally to her head. I also know that when deluding herself into thinking she could marry Dr Berke and she forced herself into a societal box of female disempowerment, she was REALLY willing to walk the isle without eyebrows!
Further, while now celebrating its 20th season, Meredith has had (at the very least) over 13 prospective love interests enter the scene, having been privy to intimate encounters with BOTH McDreamy & McSteamy (something writers hope time will wax over since Eric Dane landed a better impact than anticipated) and Mark (coincidentally and comedically) has slept with ALL of Derrick's 4 sisters and his wife, Addison, before we even wrap Season 2.
Yes, 19 years of heartaches and hangovers will stack up fast when keeping track. Still, these are the people we love to watch live and learn.
Beneath it all is the backbone of the shows theme - a then 27 year-old medical intern, struggling with the loss of her mother, finds her place (and herself) in the world at-large while managing to evolve through the creative chaos with wisdom and maturity as she journeys now through motherhood herself.
(That took a lot of effort to sum up 20 years in a single sentence, but I believe I nailed it.)
If you haven't watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy (whether intentionally, while stuck sick at home through a cold, during your routine housekeeping as a means to have some noise for company or even forced by a girlfriend on a interesting Thursday night in) you're probably the minority at this point. Regardless, I recommend giving it a go. But start from the beginning, about 423 episodes ago.
If you have Netflix, you can catch up in about 343 hours if you binge-watch. This equates to roughly 14 days and 7 hours. See you in a fortnight!
My warmest wishes to the excellent and ever-evolving cast of Grey's Anatomy, obviously to Ellen Pompeo and to the shows powerhouse, Shonda Rhimes. (Creator/Writer/Producer)
Notes
*Telephilia is the term used to refer to a passionate interest in television.
**A fan or fanatic, sometimes also termed an aficionado or enthusiast, is a person who exhibits strong interest or admiration for something or somebody, such as a celebrity, a sport, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a movie, a video game or an entertainer.
***What is relative perspective in psychology?
Relativism expresses the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. Relativists claim that humans understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviours only in terms of, for example, their historical or cultural context.
