Viewpoints News (Page 12)

Michael Ausiello of TV Guide tells of a visit to the set of Grey's Anatomy in a lengthy segment of his blog today. The lucky TV guru, along with 60 other TV critics and reporters, was admitted to Grey's fictional Seattle Grace Hospital last week for a tour of the set and a consultation with the show's cast. Below, he talks about what he got out of this Anatomy lesson:

1. The creator is loosening her spoiler policy.

Well, kind of. If Dr. Bailey is the show's Resident Nazi, Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes is the Information Nazi, never divulging what plot lines we can expect. But she did let on that "the fabulous Miss Diahann Carroll" would be one of the new season's first guest stars, and also dropped a mini-bomb about the premiere:

"It basically takes place hours after the last [finale] ended. It's not like we're going to do a big leap forward in time, and everybody's fine and nothing's wrong with anyone. I don't do that."

Interesting. When asked to confirm a report about Eric Dane (a.k.a. Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan) coming back to the Grey set, Rhimes dodged the question, but acknowledged the popularity of this particular guest star.

"People sent a lot of e-mails and letters for a guy who appeared in one episode," said Rhimes (with cast members James Pickens, Jr., Chandra Wilson, Sandra Oh and Isaiah Washington, below). 

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According to an article in yesterday's Buffalo News, Emmy-nominated Grey's Anatomy star Sandra Oh heard a stunning rumor while inside the show's operating room of the show. She immediately shared the rumor, regarding an absent cast member, with co-star Ellen Pompeo.

"Is Isaiah Washington leaving?" asked Oh, who plays Dr. Cristina Yang, the love interest of Washington's Dr. Preston Burke.

"Nooooo," said a perplexed Pompeo. "Where is he going?"

"I don't know," said Oh.

"What is Yang going to do? Wow, you'll be more pathetic. You have to move on... We'll have to go to the bar and have a drink, and I'll tell you the inappropriate things that you did," Pompeo joked.

Of course, the two actresses had no idea if that rumor (which is dead wrong -- phew!) or any other, for that matter, has any validity. The reason? Creator Shonda Rhimes (below) is legendary for keeping story lines to herself, and that's not likely to change anytime soon.

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The Grey's Anatomy Insider takes its role as the top fan site on the web very seriously. That means we always scouring the web for news, as well as looking for viewpoints from everyone -- fans, critics, columnists, bloggers and even medical practitioners.

Last season, we talked to a pediatrics intern at Massachusetts General Hospital. Most recently, we made the acquaintance of Liane Nasser, a Physician Assistant student at an Ivy League institution, who has been doing clinical rotations in New England hospitals for the past 13 months.

When she's not watching Grey's Anatomy, Liane currently works in a large Boston teaching hospital, which employs the typical hierarchy of attending physician, chief resident, resident, intern, and student.

Below, we take a look inside the mind of someone on the inside... which is precisely what an Insider ought to be doing.

THE INSIDER: Liane, welcome. It is a pleasure to talk to you today. Let's get right down to it. On one Grey's Anatomy episode, "Something to Talk About," a husband developed a seemingly pregnant belly due to sympathy pains for his wife. What's the strangest condition you've encountered?

LIANE: I once encountered a 12-year-old girl who was caught jumping on her parents' bed. She came into the ER with extreme pain in her right side and a small cut oozing a fluid that was darker and more viscous than blood. With a CT scan, it was found that the fluid was in fact pen ink. Apparently, the child's mother had been writing checks in bed and the patient landed on the pen and it logdged 4 inches inside the belly. She went off to surgery.

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No one can accuse ABC of playing it safe this year.

Not that it can afford to, writes Matt Roush of TV Guide. With nine new series to introduce this fall (10 if you count Day Break, which will pinch hit for Lost for 13 weeks beginning in November) there's little doubt that the network has its work cut out for it. ABC has taken some notable risks as a result, the most noteworthy being the move of Grey's Anatomy to Thursday night.

"We know it’s an aggressive schedule," ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson said. "We’re rebuilding. We’ve got a lot of work to do... We have to look at the assets that we have and play those cards."

"There’s risk in it, there's no question, but if you look at our options and you weigh out what options we had to play and where we had to play them, indeed this is the best scenario. It’s not ideal. I wish I had seven nights of programming I didn’t have to change. But that's not the way the game is played," he added.

The shifting of Grey's Anatomy sets up a brawl with CSI, which has dominated Thursdays for years. Who's the favorite? Nina Tassler, head of CBS Entertainment, played the lowering-expectations game last weekend when she referred to her network's smash hit crime drama as the underdog.

McPherson wasn't buying it.

"I heard Nina was playing the rope-a-dope. It’s kind of funny. CSI and CBS have dominated that night. I think they are the champions without question, and we are coming on with a strong contender and hope to do some business," he said.

Adding to ABC's risk factor this season is the fact that many of its new shows are unconventional. As in, high concept or serialized, or, to be more specific, demanding of their audience. But the man running the show seems to think that's the direction he should go.

"I hope that viewers will give the next serialized show a shot. But I think it raises the bar for how good serials have to be... We have to have more appointment television." McPherson said. "More Losts. More Desperate Housewives. More Grey's Anatomys. We have to have shows that people need to watch at a specific time."

Does Grey's Anatomy go out of its way to downplay its stars' physical attractiveness?

While that might seem crazy -- we are talking, after all, about a show starring Patrick Dempsey -- a reader posed this question to TV Guide in regards to Chandra Wilson, who plays Dr. Miranda Bailey.

A magazine spread showed the reader a different, beautiful side of the actress (pictured) that Grey's fans never see in the crass, no-nonsense doctor she plays.

Matt Roush of TV Guide concurs that most of the actors on Grey's Anatomy are actually made to look worse -- in other words, much more real than TV typically portrays. One of the things people love about the show is how it allows even glamorous actors to look frazzled, unkempt, exhausted and rarely at their best. As if they really are on call 70 hours a week.

While the show might stretch reality with its medical story lines, it deserves due credit for avoiding the vanity trap... mostly. Justin Chambers somehow stays smugly handsome at all times, and the producers can't resist putting Katherine Heigl in form-fitting blue scrbs. Not that we're complaining...

Can Grey's Anatomy derail CSI on its new night and time, or will the hit medical drama meet a similar fate as the beloved Denny Duquette?

That's the question of an MSN.com article previewing the upcoming Thursday night ratings showdown. ABC recently announced that it would move Grey’s out of its comfy Sunday time slot to Thursdays at 9, bringing it face-to-face with CBS’ monster hit CSI, the most-watched scripted show on television.

With an average audience of more than 25 million viewers per episode, CSI rules non-reality TV. It might not get the buzz of Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, 24 or even the Housewives, but people tune in by the millions, and there’s no reason to think that’s going to change anytime soon. The only show to draw more viewers is the peerless American Idol, which saw its best ratings yet in season five and more than 36 million viewers of its finale.

No one would dare oppose Idol, but ABC sees CSI as vulnerable and senses an opportunity. While it has a standout Sunday night performer in Grey's, ABC believes that by moving it to Thursdays, it can make even more money even if a few million viewers abandon ship.
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Staying at home with an infant daughter, Shonda Rhimes discovered pretty quickly that there were basically two things to do:

1. Change diapers
2. Watch television.

So the screenwriter watched, day in and day out. But, Rhimes told Time Magazine, she found the females on TV a boring lot.

"They seemed to exist purely in relation to the men in their lives. Women I knew were competitive and a little snarky and had their share of bad days. There wasn't a show out there about women who seemed like them," she said.

So, with her daughter Harper on her lap, Rhimes hammered out the first episode of Grey's Anatomy, a medical drama centered around five interns (three female, two male) in a fictional Seattle hospital. She stocked her pilot with the complex, ambitious, clever and confused women -- the type of people she knew in real life.

"They were my fantasy men," said Rhimes of Drs. Burke (Isaiah Washington) and Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), two senior surgeons. "They got to say and do things that I wish men would say and do."

Even as she put the finishing touches on the epic season two finale, the 36-year old Grey's Anatomy creator found it surprising that her initial foray into prime-time TV has turned into a monster hit. Grey's ranks among the top five prime-time shows, with nearly 20 million viewers a week.
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ATTENTION, FANS: We didn't kill Denny, but we can tell you who did.

Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of Grey's Anatomy, sat down with TV Guide's Michael Ausiello and discussed the show's compelling season finale. The woman behind Seattle Grace Hospital and its stellar staff talked about Denny, her favorite parts of the season-ending extravaganza, the show's move to Thursday night, and more.

No big Season Three hints, but one thing's for sure - what we saw Sunday and Monday was all part of Shonda's master plan, with more drama yet to come! We've posted the interview below!

TV GUIDE: Was it a difficult decision to kill off Denny?

SHONDA: Well, he was written to die. I knew what was going to happen when we created the character. But it was hard because he became such a part of our cast. Everybody loved him. Sweetest guy. He and Izzie have this amazing chemistry. And I personally was like, "He's my imaginary husband! He can't die!" It was necessary for the arc of the Izzie character and where she was going and what was going to happen to her for that moment to happen.

TV GUIDE: Did you ever worry that you were taking her meltdown and the whole cutting-the-cord thing too far? I kept thinking, "How will she ever be able to keep her job after this!"

SHONDA: No, because I know what's going to happen next. Everything's planned, all next season. There's a plan involved in everything. So, no, I didn't ever feel like we were going too far because that was the moment I've been leading her to all season long.

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Will Meredith and Derek ever be together? Much as viewers might hope so, television history offers evidence to the contrary.

Last week on The West Wing, NBC's award-winning and long-running political drama, former White House staffer Donna Moss hooked up with her boss, Josh Lyman (pictured). The significance of the event was that Moss and the former Deputy Chief of Staff had been pining for each other since... 1999. That may be some kind of record. While it's an extreme case, a column on Slate.com says it's par for the course for TV shows to keep perfect couples apart. It's a tale as old as time. Or at least the '80s.

On the classic sitcom Cheers, the love/hate relationship between Sam Malone and Diane Chambers (then later Rebecca Howe) was a central theme. On spinoff Frasier, Niles futilely pursued Daphne for many seasons. Friends saw Ross and Rachel hook up and break up so many times it became absurd. Even now we see palpable sexual tension between Kim and Pam on The Office, as well as with Gil Grissom and Sara on CBS' immensely popular CSI.

It's a formula for success, no doubt about it. Having introduced the young Dr. Grey and Dr. "McDreamy" Shepherd as a couple early on, and subsequently driving them apart with the arrival of Derek's estranged wife, Addison, it looks like the Grey's Anatomy writers are following this path.

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According to MSNBC, it's the tried-and-true medical drama setup (good-looking doctors, talented guest stars, compelling medical scenarios) combined with a top-notch cast of characters with real depth and no shortage of sexual tension. In other words, Grey's Anatomy.

Assembling a group of talented actors and actresses without a bona fide star that distracts from the other cast members is a challenge, but Grey's Anatomy succeeded. Whether it's The Girl from Old School (Ellen Pompeo), That '80s Teen Idol Guy (Patrick Dempsey), or the Girl from Sideways (Sandra Oh), the cast members are recognizable, but not big enough to detract from the show as a whole.Throw in terrific but unappreciated performers such as Isaiah Washington, T.R. Knight and Katherine Heigl, and you have a group where any plot or combination can carry the show.

The characters geared towards establishing a rapport with the audience, and giving every viewer someone they relate to. While Meredith (Pompeo) is the central figure, George O’Malley (Knight) is the conscience, an "everyman" and lovable loser destined to be an audience favorite. Drs. Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Webber (James Pickens, Jr.) are endearing, but no-nonsense bosses.
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