The XX Factor: What women really think.

Feeling Blue About Grey's

Welcome, Willa!  I have been a Grey's watcher since the first episode (Meredith and McDreamy's lust at first sight in Joe's bar didn't grab me as much as Christina's painful perfectionism). I also wondered what Shonda Rhimes was thinking when Denny Duquette insisted on being a major character in Season 5 despite his prolonged tragic death in Season 2. Sadly, despite the astounding 15-year record of NBC's ER, it is very difficult to keep hourlong medical dramas compelling and original after five years (witness Fox's House), so I hoped the silly dead-Denny story arc would resolve quickly (with Isabel's brain tumor diagnosis, no doubt) and possibly postpone the shark-jumping a bit longer. Alas, the conceit went on a bit too long—she's supposed to be a doctor; how about a little self-diagnosis?—and became tedious and annoying. Yet I've had a standing appointment with the ABC full-episode player every Friday this season (um, my DVR won't let me watch The Office and record G's Anatomy simultaneously), and the plot still manages to make me respond. The pairings and re-pairings at Seattle Grace have lost their surprise but, so far, despite its creator's originality fatigue, the program still delivers a serving of irony, pathos, or character twist stirred into every script in spite of itself.