I like you, I really do. I like your wit, and your drama, and your relationships (although the only one I actually believe in is Derek and Meredith). I like how you can make me cry almost every week. I love your music and your pretty, pretty men. I want Kate Walsh's hair. And Addison Montgomery-Shepherd's personality and her hot, hot glasses. I also have a thing for ferry boats.
(oh, you may not want to read this if you haven't seen the episode that played in NZ on Thursday)
But.
You need to learn that aside from news and sport and religious programming and that other crap there's essentially three kinds of television.
1) "Reality TV" Which isn't reality, but never mind that. If I wanted to watch 'real' people do stupid things I'd leave the house, instead of sitting on my arse on the couch, knitting. Or I'd hang out with my friends more.
2) Shows that make reality much more interesting. Soaps, sitcoms, dramedy, whatever. Shows that are embedded in reality, but make it look much more attractive and fun that it really is. Are all the doctors at Wellington Hospital shagging their interns? probably not (I doubt they have the time , what with being so short-staffed). Do they all look like Patrick Dempsey? I doubt it, and I'm pretty sure if they did we'd be injuring ourselves deliberately rather than just inadvertently or drunkenly. Could a chef and a fashion buyer live in a huge loft apartment in Manhattan? Doubt it. Does DNA actually solve every crime ever? No. But I don't care overly much about that. I like escaping from my mundane reality to one in which the people are beautiful, the houses are nice, and the dramas are entertaining.
3) Shows that are not pretending to be in any kind of reality (that most sane people accept). Buffy, Lost, Star Trek (I geuss - I've never actually watched an episode), Alias, Heroes, blah blah blah. The shows I like of this genre tend to be exploring real issues by removing them from a normal situation and heightening them. Although I'm not sure what lost is exploring...how hard it is to use hair straighteners on a deserted tropical island?
Anyway. Grey's.
I feel the need to say this. You can't be both 2 and 3. Your 'very special' three part episode was dumb. Dumb.
First of all, we know Meredith isn't going to die. She's the title character. Unless you are going to take the word 'anatomy' WAY too seriously, and turn it into yet another forensics show, she's going to live.
Which makes the whole 'afterlife' crap stupid. I know you tried to explain it by having her say '"this is the ketamine..." thing (ketamine? isn't that the horse tranquilizer? Also known as special k?), but it came off as a whole, metaphysical, heaveny, ham-fisted purgatory arrangement.
The stuff with the people coping with the idea that she might die, and how the staffed coped in a crisis...great. sure. Liked it. The hospital-as-waiting-room-to-go-to-heaven thing - not so cool.
You can't be both options 2 and 3. That way lies madness, musical episodes and flashbacks. And I don't think your audience will put up with that.
However:
See? Great hair, and hot, hot glassses.
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