Below is a sneak preview of Thursday’s all-new episode of Grey’s Anatomy, “Kung Fu Fighting.” Guess it didn’t take long for Dr. Erica Hahn to delve into heart surgeries at Seattle Grace. Here, Dr. Hahn and Izzie, along with the Chief, are in the middle of an operation and come across a complication that could soon become problematic.

It should be a good episode. We also have our photo gallery up for the new episode if you are interested in checking it out. There may be minor spoilers therein.

The sometime Grey’s Anatomy spoiler aficionado, Michael Ausiello of TV Guide, is back at it with a spate of potentially juicy gossip. Here’s what he has to say…

Question: My DVR broke and I need some very juicy Grey’s Anatomy gossip to get over the pain.
Ausiello: Tomorrow night, two characters who have never been romantically linked will have sex… and Meredith will walk in on them! Any guesses?

Question: Are they going do be doing anything with McSteamy’s storyline on Grey’s Anatomy anytime soon? A new love interest possibly?
Ausiello: Call me crazy, but I have a hunch that Mark Sloan is the mystery doc Brooke Smith said would be crushing on Dr. Hahn in a future episode.

Question: Last Thursday’s Grey’s Anatomy, “Haunt You Every Day,” was the best episode of the season so far! Was Brooke Smith (Dr. Erica Hahn) the guest star promoted to series regular you were referring to earlier this year?
Ausiello: She sure was.

Question: This George and Izzie thing is getting gross. When will it end?
Ausiello: Certainly not tomorrow night, when the two of them decide to have sex for the first time without being drunk. Unfortunately for them … but fortunately for us … an obstacle stands in their way. Hint: Removing the obstacle requires a sharp object that can be found at your local CVS.

Question: You said Lauren Stamile would be Derek’s new love interest, but I haven’t seen any other Grey’s Anatomy spoilers to support this.
Ausiello: Are you fact-checking my stories? In any event, there’s no need to vet my Stamile item; she’s definitely coming in as a love interest for Patrick Dempsey. In fact, their first date is scheduled for November 15.

TV viewers hooked on cliffhanger episodes of hit shows such as Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy could be left dangling if writers walk off the job.

With Hollywood writers poised to go on strike as soon as Thursday, TV networks were bracing for the need to fill time with reality shows, game shows, even reruns.

Viewers could start seeing an onslaught of unscripted entertainment by early next year, when series such as Desperate Housewives and Heroes run out of episodes.

“I was in a network meeting (Monday), and they were referring to the fact the timing is good for reality producers,” reality TV producer Mark Cronin said.

“It’s going from 50 mph to 70 mph,” Cronin said, adding that networks must “protect themselves and fill their airspace” amid the upcoming writers strike.

The Writers Guild of America and the group representing film and TV producers were set to meet this week with a federal mediator after contentious talks.

With the contract set to expire at midnight Wednesday, negotiators remain far apart on the central issue of raising payment for profits on DVDs and TV shows offered digitally on the Internet, cellphones and other devices.

A newcomer to TV’s writing ranks earns about $70,000 per season for full-time work on a show like Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives or Heroes.

Veteran TV show writers who move up to a story-editor position would get at least a low six-figure salary, with a “written by” credit on an hour-long script paying an additional $30,000 plus residuals.

Writers are free to negotiate for higher pay, and people who produce or co-produce - called “hyphenates” in industry parlance - earn more.

If writers walk out, the effect wouldn’t be felt immediately. Networks have enough episodes of shows like CSI and Ugly Betty written and in production to last at least the end of the year and possibly into February of 2008.

After that, most schedules will run into trouble.

He’s the subject of many Grey’s Anatomy spoilers, rumors and gossip, but good luck getting T.R. Knight to spill the details his character, George O’Malley’s budding romance with his best friend Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl).

On October 25’s new episode of Grey’s Anatomy, “Haunt You Every Day,” George’s relationship with Callie (Sara Ramirez) apparently ended, and he officially moved on to Izzie - with whom he had an affair while married to Callie, who’s both of their bosses - prompting Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) to declare, “they’re in love!”

So what are T.R Knight’s thoughts on the love triangle?

“I’m interested to see what is going to happen — I don’t even know what is going on with it,” Knight, 34, told Us Weekly. “Although it would be nice to see [George] get someone whom he doesn’t divorce or cheat on.”

T.R. Knight — who is gay, and who came out of the closet last year — told the magazine that his love life is also up in the air in real life.

When asked if it is tough dating under the scrutiny and bright lights of Hollywood, T.R. Knight replied, “It is difficult anywhere!”

“I don’t know why finding someone seems so important in all of our lives, yet remains so difficult,” he added. “I’m not exactly sure why … fear, maybe?”

“The more available he gets, the more I pull away.” So Meredith says, referring to you know who. “Tonight we will have hot sex.” So Izzie says to a different you know who.

This week’s all-new Grey’s Anatomy episode, “Kung Fu Fighting” - which, for some reason, ABC is apparently running from 9:00-10:07 - looks like a good one. Here’s ABC’s first promo. More pics, promos and sneak preview clips to be posted soon!

The New York Times tells the story of how a silly-sounding word reached the ear of a powerful TV producer, and in only seconds of air time 18 months ago, expanded the vocabularies — for better or worse — of legions of Americans.

Vajayjay.

On February 12, 2006, viewers of Grey’s Anatomy heard the character, Miranda Bailey, a pregnant doctor who had gone in labor, admonish one of her young interns, stating emphatically “O’Malley… stop looking at my vajayjay!”

The line sprang from a producer’s need to mollify standards and executives who wanted the script to include fewer mentions of the word vagina.

The scene, however, had the unintended effect of catapulting vajayjay (also written va-jay-jay) into mainstream speech. Grey’s Anatomy fans expressed their approval of the word on message boards, forums and blogs.

Perhaps the show’s most notable fan, Oprah Winfrey, began using it, effectively legitimizing it for some 46 million American viewers each week.

“I think vajayjay is a nice word, don’t you?” she asked her audience.

• Vajayjay found its way into electronic dictionaries like Urban Dictionary, Word Spy and Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary.
• It was uttered on the television series 30 Rock.
• It was used on the Web site of The Tyra Banks Show.
• Jimmy Kimmel said it in a monologue.
• It has appeared in the Web publications Salon and the Huffington Post and on the blog Wonkette.

The swift adoption of vajayjay is not simply about pop culture’s ability to embrace slang. Neologisms are always percolating. What it really demonstrates, say some linguists, is a vacuum in popular discourse, a need for a word for female genitalia that is not clinical, crude, misogynistic or descriptive from a man’s point of view.

Shonda Rhimes, creator and executive producer of Grey’s Anatomy, brought the word into full view, but never intended to promote a euphemism or slang for the female anatomy. Rather, she fought to use vagina in the script.

“I had written an episode during the second season of Grey’s in which we used the word vagina a great many times (perhaps 11),” Rhimes wrote to the Times. “Now, we’d used the word penis 17 times in a single episode and no one blinked. But with vagina, the good folks at broadcast standards and practices blinked over and over and over. I think no one is comfortable experiencing the female anatomy out loud — which is a shame considering our anatomy is half the population.”

Continue reading about va-jay-jays in the New York Times …

The 79th straight week of the Insider’s Grey’s Anatomy Caption Contest was a good one for sure. Let’s take a look at this funny pic from “Haunt You Every Day” and see who emerged victorious in our traditional Monday contest.

Honorable mentions go out to McKatie, greys, AnnetteC and iloveshepherd, but we chose Cat as this week’s winner. Short, simple, funny! Congratulations, and thank you to all who participated this week. We are always grateful for your support.

The winning reply appears underneath the photo below, and you can scroll down the page to review the full list of captions we received. Thanks again for making our site the #1 Grey’s Anatomy fan source online. We appreciate you playing!

Here is this week’s Caption Contest image:

George: “Something’s different…but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

Sara Ramirez didn’t join the cast of Grey’s Anatomy until Season Two and was not made a full-time cast member until the start of Season Three.

But Sara Ramirez’s character of Dr. Callie Torres - recently promoted to Seattle Grace chief resident - sure is in the thick of things here in Season Four.

In fact, Calliope’s turbulent love life has been getting a large part of the attention this season, thanks to a possible split from husband George O’Malley (T.R. Knight), who had an affair with his best friend Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl).

“Like all the characters on the show, I think Callie has her flaws, issues, hang-ups. We don’t know all the ins-and-outs of why she truly was with George. I think there was a pure love there but I’m sure Callie has other issues behind clinging onto something that just isn’t right,” Ramirez told the Los Angeles Daily News.

While the role on Grey’s Anatomy has made the Mexican-American hottie widely known to television audiences, the New York theater scene has been aware of Sara for some time now. In fact, Ramirez won the 2005 Tony Award for her performance as The Lady of the Lake in “Monty Python’s Spamalot.”

Sara Ramirez is certain she will return to the stage at some point.

“I consider New York and theater my home base, where I sort of grew up,” she said. “I miss it and I hope they’ll have me back whether it’s a musical - it doesn’t have to be on Broadway - or a play. I miss the theater, the whole symbiotic relationship between actor and audience and being on stage. The live factor.”

One could almost feel the battle over the TV remote between men and women on Thursday night. When the dust settled, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy seems to have won the ratings battle over Game Two of the World Series on Fox.

The fifth new episode of Season Four of Grey’s Anatomy, “Haunt You Every Day,” pulled a Nielsen preliminary 7.4 rating/15 share - more or less on par with recent ratings for the show - the best-rated programming of the night.

A close Red Sox-Rockies game (won 2-1 by Boston, who clinched the title last night) pulled a 5.1 rating/14 share, down a bit from World Series numbers in Wednesday’s Game One, but still higher than last year’s second World Series game.

While Fox was behind Grey’s Anatomy’s “Haunt You Every Day,” the baseball game was tops in the other parts of prime time. Fox won the night overall - just ahead of ABC - with 4.8/14 statistics compared to ABC’s 4.6/10.

Grey’s Anatomy aside, ABC mostly kept its audience against the Fox sports event - only down two share points from a week ago as a whole. The ratings for both Ugly Betty and Big Shots were in line with its numbers versus a week ago.

In the face of heavy male-oriented programming from Fox, CBS took its power CSI out of harm’s way, offering a rerun. On a positive note, Without a Trace was a full rating point better than the disastrous Viva Laughlin debut a week ago.

NBC’s comedies had a better night this Thursday - My Name Is Earl grew to 3.6/10 from a 2.7/8 of a week ago; 30 Rock also showed gains, with a 3.1/8 from a 2.6/7. NBC’s best performer of Thursday - The Office - put up a comparable 4.7/11.

But this didn’t do much for the season debut of Scrubs, which earned a 3.8/9. NBC had a 3.8/11 for the night. CW’s Smallville was down at a 1.8/4, and Supernatural was up a bit at a 1.3/3. For the night, CW’s 1.6/4 was just behind Univision’s 1.7/4.

While fans gather in our forum to discuss each character and plot line, the Grey’s Anatomy Insider staff comes together to talk about their favorite moments and share their opinions regarding the most recent episode of TV’s top drama.

Round Table topics for “Haunt You Every Day” range from the arrival of Dr. Erica Hahn to Alex and Ava, Bailey’s personal life and new hospital club ideas …

1. Dr. Hahn: Welcome addition, or Unwanted bitch?

McCritic: A welcome addition. Especially considering the rumors that Dr. Hahn is a lesbian. Talk about sticking it to Isaiah Washington where it counts!

iheartizzie: Dr. Hahn’s previous guest appearances were very solid, and I think the actress (Brooke Smith) does a great job. The only regrettable thing is Burke being gone - these college classmates had a great love-hate rapport, a begrudging mutual respect. It will be interesting to see Cristina work with Dr. Hahn.

AndYouveGotTheHair: Welcome. Looks like with Dr. Hahn and Lexie (Chyler Leigh) we’re back up to an even dozen full-time cast members. That’s a lot to find good stories and screen time for, but I do like Dr. Hahn and think she’ll fit in well.

2. We now have Nurses United Against Mark Sloan. What other types of clubs could be formed to rally against (or for) other characters on the show?

iheartizzie: The I Got Syph From Olivia Club. Although word has it this club’s server has already crashed twice from so many people logging on at once.

McCritic: Loyal and Dedicated Husbands Against George O’Malley.

AndYouveGotTheHair: Men and Women United in Awe of McDreamy’s Hair.

3. For the first time in awhile, we got a glimpse into the personal life of Dr. Miranda Bailey. Do you want to see more of this?

AndYouveGotTheHair: I’ve been talking about the need for more Bailey on the show for weeks, and this insight into her personal life was an unexpected wrinkle. I’m glad the writers did it, because she’s too good not to have more depth.

McCritic: Yes. It makes sense we rarely see the Miranda behind the Dr. Bailey. But this character has the biggest heart on the show. It’s intriguing to see how she balances such generosity between her life-saving professional requirements and the demands of a loving husband and adorable newborn at home.

iheartizzie: Dr. Bailey is awesome. She’s the go-to resident, regardless of Callie’s title. But given her commitment to Seattle Grace, and the lack of attention her home life receives, I’ve wondered if she is headed down the same road as Richard on a personal level. This week was the first time this has been explored.

4. Diagnose the chemistry between Alex and Ava.

McCritic: Hot and heavy, with a chance for perpetual bliss if treated with proper care.

iheartizzie: Latent, but palpable. If Ava gives Alex the proper medication (a kick in the rear end), hopefully his symptoms of trepidation will be cured!

AndYouveGotTheHair: Breaking out! Someone give this girl 50 CCs of Karev, STAT! Body temperatures will be rising in the on-call room next week!