Entertainment Weekly's Jennifer Armstrong reviews last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy and makes some good points about the recent changes on the show:
Look, I like Grey's Anatomy, I really do. And that is why I can say this with love: The all-medical, all-the-time episodes need to stop. I appreciate Derek getting some spotlight time, but I'd like it to shed some more light on his character, not just on his surgeries. In this case, though, he was just walking us through ER territory yet again. And for the record, I think ER did a great job with its medical cases; however, I do not watch Grey's Anatomy to get my ER fix. I watch it to see hot doctors make out in the on-call room and preposterously talk about their personal lives over their surgeries and banter at lunch and make life-changing romantic decisions based on metaphorical lessons learned from their patients. Absolutely zero of that happened here, and very little has happened in the last few episodes, save that one amazing one two weeks ago.
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And then it was back to the one and only medical case of the night (another problem, focusing on just one surgery when it isn't absolutely mind-blowing). The Chief, being Mr. Fussy Penny Pincher that he is now, said Derek couldn't operate. Guess what that meant! Why, yes, of course, Derek scheduled surgery anyway! And of course Dr. McHotness Monster — a.k.a. Jackson — got the surgery over Cristina after a tryout in which the docs had to show who could get the closest to dotting George Washington on the nose on a dollar bill with a pen while looking through that surgery-scope thing. See, here's how this could've gone old-school Grey's: Cristina could've been trying to get things right with Hunt but missing the mark.Derek could've been struggling to endure through a personal crisis, which would've made it all the more resonant when Isaac said to him, ''There's always a way to survive.'' (I know I haven't fleshed those suggested story lines out much; just saying, I miss those days when it all tied together more.)
Instead, Cristina, um, briefly talked to Hunt about how she would like to be part of the tumor surgery because she was, essentially, envious that Lexie got to be in the so-long-and-intense procedure that she'd actually fashioned a diaper so she wouldn't need breaks. ''I want to have to pee in a diaper.'' Amusing? Yes. Sexy talk for the once-hot couple? No. And why does she even need to explain this to Dr. Badass himself?
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The next day as Derek detailed his re-entry plans, Jackson marveled, ''No one at Mercy West was this badass.'' Hopefully that means he'll be sticking around Seattle Grace now for the badassery. Because someone needs to make out with his hot self, and fast. Just like someone needs to make out with Hunt. Preferably Cristina, but anyone will do at this point. There's just so much sexiness going to waste these days on layoff anxiety and the saving of lives and whatnot. While I appreciate the attempt to parallel real lives, and I know many of us can relate to worrying for our futures, sometimes when I turn my TV on, particularly at 9 p.m. on Thursday on ABC, I would like to also perhaps see some romantic issues and some sexual high-jinks. Now that almost everyone at Seattle Grace is coupled up, it's cooled off way too much.
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And Hunt helped Cristina finally master the dot-on-George-Washington's-nose trick by showing her — via some full body contact, the most action we've seen in weeks — how to stand farther back from the surgery-scopy thing.
We couldn't agree more.
