Grey's Anatomy (Season 3)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh, Sara Ramírez, Eric Dane

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B-

In many ways the third season of Grey’s Anatomy is one of my favourite seasons of the show, while at the same time in many ways it’s my least favourite.  I love what the show does with some of its more secondary main characters and I love how many characters are introduced or bumped up in this season. I love the dynamic that Callie (Ramírez) and Sloan (Dane) bring to the show, and the way that Meredith’s (Pompeo) father and his other family are introduced more – and the way that Meredith further embraces her other family, and the way in which her relationship with the Chief (Pickens) develops.  I love the whole idea of the Chief being a surrogate father for Meredith, and it’s in this season that we really begin to start to see that.

The third season of Grey’s Anatomy starts with Meredith trying to choose between McDreamy (Dempsey) and McVet (Chris O’Donnell), Izzie (Heigl) trying to cope with Denny’s death, Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) deal with the results of the shooting, the Chief is forced to choose between his wife and his job, Bailey (Wilson) tries to reaffirm her status as a surgeon post-becoming a mommy, and George (Knight) tries to figure out his relationship with Callie. And, of course, to mess with it all, Mark Sloan returns to Seattle Grace. As the season progresses there are hook ups and break ups, marriages and divorces, births and deaths, comings and goings. The season seems to go into so many different directions, with so many plots being picked up and dropped, that it’s hard to provide a quick summary of it all without spoiling the way in which things with the earliest plots develop.

Okay, so the McDreamy/McVet thing was great.  As was the addition of McSteamy and the Dirty Mistresses club.  I love McStreamy and the element that he brings to the show.  Somehow, the Mer/Der/Addison (Pompeo) triangle is so much with the addition of a viable love interest for Addison.  I also like the fact that Sloan is as much about getting his friendship with Derek back as he is about doing anything with Addison - and the fact that he's very much about sleeping with as much of the hospital's female staff as possible.  It's such a great element of his character, I love it.  I really enjoyed elements of the George/Callie relationship too.  I love how the crush that George had on Mer is gone, and that he's trying to become an adult and enter into an adult relationship with someone.  I hate where the relationship ended up going, but then my overall dislike of Izzie at this point may have been a huge contributing factor there.  Also, am I right in thinking that George's friends are complete asses for how they treated Callie here?

I didn't like the second half of this season nearly as much as I liked the first half.  Things kind of change following the three parter, "Walk on Water," "Drowning on Dry Land," and Some Kind of Miracle." While I really did like what they did with each of those episodes - and especially the reactions to Mer's situation in "Some Kind of Wonderful" - it marked a turning point in the season where everything just started to go to shit again.  I do like how the season ended, but the steps that they took in getting there just bugged me.  Sometimes I wonder if our Interns are growing up or if our Attendings are simply sinking down to their level.

That being said, I did absolutely love the season's finale.  The relationship between Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) has always been an interesting one, and I've found it intriguing to watch how much of herself Christina has been willing to give up for him.  There's a part of me that wonders what would have happened had real life not shaped the direction of the plot here - Washington's controversial behaviour on set had a huge play in things - but I like how they dealt with things as it was.  In my opinion, there was no better way this relationship could have gone.

Week in Review: October 8 - 13

Birthdays: I kind of forgot to do birthdays this week, so I made up for it in the last couple days (I think).  This week we celebrated the births of Josh Hutcherson, Kate Walsh, and Sir Roger Moore, all who've had roles that I've reviewed in the last few months.

Movies - New movies of the week were Pitch Perfect and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  I loved them both, for completely different reasons, but I think I would say that I liked Perks a bit more.  Bonds were A View to Kill and The Living Daylights, the latter which showed me that Timothy Dalton is a preferable Bond to Roger Moore.

Books - Book of the week was Bernard Cornwell's latest instalment in The Saxon Stories, Death of Kings. For the most part I did enjoy this book, although I don't think it's entirely up to par with previous installments of the series.

TV - Another disappointment was this week's TV show, the second season of Franklin and Bash.  I could have been much more impressed by our favourite goofball lawyers and their colleagues.

Recommendations - A slew of recommendations this week, including Argo, Here Comes the Boom, Seven Psychopaths, and 1, 2, 3... Frankie Goes Boom.  Of the group, Frankie Goes Boom is a limited release, but you should be able to see the rest in theatres.

Next Week -Up next week we finish off Timothy Dalton and the eighties with Licence to Kill before entering the nineties and welcoming a new Bond, Pierce Brosnan, with GoldenEye.  I'm beginning to really see the end in sight with this series.  New movie of the week will be Argo.

Requests -What about you? Anything I should check out?  Let me know.

Birthday: Kate Walsh

Today is Kate Walsh's birthday!

I first became aware of Walsh in the 2003 movie Under the Tuscan Sun where she has a small role as Sandra Oh's partner.  The pair came together again in Grey's Anatomy when Walsh joined the cast as McDreamy's wife, Addison Montgomery in the second season.  This role really propelled her career, at least in my eyes, and turned into a starring role in the spin-off series, Private Practice.  Most recently, however, she's absolutely wowed me as Charlie's mother in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  I cannot even begin to say just how much I loved her in this role, no matter how small it may have been.  Now that she's leaving Private Practice I can't wait to see what she does next.

Happy birthday!

Grey's Anatomy (Season 2)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B-

I went into rewatching Grey’s Anatomy with the thought that at some point the character if Izzie Stevens (Heigl) was a good one.  Sure, she wasn’t the best surgeon in our crew of interns and she could be annoying at times, but I was certain that at some point in this show I actually liked her.  I’m not certain when I stopped liking her, but I do know for sure that by episode 19 of season two I really couldn’t stand her.

The second season picks up pretty much exactly where the first one left off, a trait that I always enjoy – while a lot of time has passed for the viewers, no time at all has passed for the show.  Meredith (Pompeo) has just discovered that her dreamy boyfriend Derek (Dempsey) is in fact married, with the appearance of his wife, Dr. Addison Montgomery Shepherd (Walsh).  This love triangle becomes the primary focus of this season, as Meredith comes to terms with Addison’s existence, Addison fights to get her husband back, and Derek is forced to chose between the women.  While this forms the focus of the show for much of the season it isn’t the only major plot.  There’s also Izzie falling in love with a patient (Jeffrey Dean Morgan); Alex (Chambers) grows as a character, as he develops a relationship with Izzie; George (Knight) finally deals with his feelings for Meredith; the relationship between Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) grows and finally becomes public; Bailey (Wilson) is pregnant; we discover more about the relationship between Meredith’s mother and Dr. Webber (Pickens); and we’re introduced to Callie Torres (Sara Ramírez), Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith), and Mark Sloan (Eric Dane), who each become main characters in later seasons.  Oh! And there’s a bomb! In a body!

 Let's start with what I liked about this season... I actually loved the triangle between Meredith, Derek, and Addison.  I don't remember how I felt about it when the show first aired, but this time round I definitely liked it.  I really like Addison as a character, I was disappointed to see her leave at the end of season 3 (and even more disappointed by Private Practice, but that's a whole other review).  The triangle later on in the season is less great, even if it does involve Chris O'Donnell.  At that point it really seems like the show runners are just trying to create drama and delay what has been set up to be the inevitable.  I would love to see O'Donnell's McVet return at a later date for a random appearance just because he was a fun character - I would not like to see him return as a romantic partner for anyone.

In addition to liking the Mer/Der/Addy triangle, I also really love what they did with George this season.  I actually think this might have been George's best season - as much as I loved the character, it's really all downhill for him from here.  Likewise, I really loved the growth of Alex here and the development of his relationship with Izzie.  While I really did not like Izzie in general, I did like what she brought out in Alex.  As for Christina and Burke... I'm never really sure if I think that Burke got Christina.  At one point in season 4 she comments on how much of herself she had to give up for him; in season 2 you start to really see her doing that.  I always love the character, but I don't think I ever really liked the relationship here.  Beyond the coure group of interns, we have the plots with Bailey (awesome!) and the Chief (less awesome, but still good).  If this show became Bailey's Anatomy I would be totally okay with that.  There is just something so unbelievably perfect about the way that Chandra Wilson portrays her.

The good having been established, let's now turn to the bad.  Mainly Izzie Stevens and her relationship with Denny Duquette.  There was nothing about this plot that was enjoyable.  While I understand that the interns (and the doctors) make mistakes and aren't always able to be professional, the relationship between Izzie and Denny is just a whole new level of wrong.  It's something you can really see building up overall with Izzie in general; she's never good at separating her emotions from her work.  While other doctors struggle with this at times, most of them are able to balance between appearing completely unemotional and heartless (Yang is an example of this, often) and being really emotional and thus unable to properly do their job.  Izzie isn't able to do this, and it just gets really annoying.  The thing that really gets me about this is that I think we're supposed to be rooting for Izzie - be it when she's having an emotional affair with her patient, or when she's violating the oath that she took before becoming a doctor - notably, the do no harm bit.  I really wasn't.  I didn't want Denny to die... I just didn't want Izzie to succeed.  Her actions really scared me - not in that I was frightened, but rather in the way that I was unnerved by the idea that a doctor might behave like that.