Viewpoints News (Page 2)

Zoanne Clack, the Grey's Anatomy writer who authored last night's episode, have posted some of her thoughts on "Stand By Me" on the show's official writers' blog. Below are some excerpts, with a link to the full column at the bottom ...

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Yes! Meredith Grey takes back the night!

I mean this literally (she’s getting back her man) and figuratively (using the reference of women empowering themselves because as I’m sure you know, March is Women’s History Month – catch the nearest parade in your city). Derek says, “I love you” and Mer answers, “I know” ... anybody remember that from somewhere else? Come on, let your geek flow.

The writers here at Grey’s Anatomy have no problems letting our geek flow. We like to think of it as being “geek chic” and we welcome you to join us.  But it’s not just the writers actually, everybody embraces their inner geek here. The editor of this episode, Susan Vaill, emailed me all excited that we’d put it in and taken this exchange back for the ladies.

Okay, some of you may already know what I’m talking about whilst others of you are completely lost. Anybody see a little movie called The Empire Strikes Back? Princess Leia says, “I love you” to Han Solo right before he’s about to be frozen in carbonite (another reference we’ve used before… episode 416 ... season 4 finale ... cement boy ... ring any bells?) and Han Solo says, “I know.”

He kind of says it in an “of course you do, look at me” kind of way. So now, we’ve taken back that exchange and handed it over to the women. And we’ve made it both feminist and feminine at the same time I’d like to think.  Feminist because Mer’s all “I’m woman, hear me roar” because she’s all that and of course he still loves her always.

Feminine at the same time because he’s vulnerable, and she’s not taking advantage of that moment, and she loves him, too.

She’s not giving up on him. She’s not giving up on their love and she’s not giving up on him as a surgeon. She’s standing by her principles and standing by her man.

Speaking of not giving up, is Cristina a freakin’ sledgehammer or what? She just keeps pounding Izzie and pounding her until Izzie finally has to lash out and speak the unspeakable. Not having treatment? Why would she ever even go there?

Follow the link to continue reading Zoanne's blog ...

Grey's Anatomy writer Jenna Bans, who penned last night's episode, have posted some thoughts on "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" on the show's official writers' blog.

Here are some excerpts, with a link to the full column below ...

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Derek Shepherd is not in a good place right now. In fact, the dude’s pretty much at his worst. Remember when our friendly neighborhood serial killer Eric Stoltz told him they had a lot in common? Derek’s started to believe him.

What I love about this storyline, besides that it gives the talented Patrick Dempsey a chance to show us just how big his acting range is, is you’d never think it would happen to Shepherd.

He knows brains like I know ... well, nothing. Maybe chocolate.

But the point is, he’s not just a star in his field, he runs his field. It’s like the Pope having a crisis of faith. And everyone’s feeling it – Mark, literally with his maimed hand, Richard, who can’t possibly run his surgical floor without his star neurosurgeon .... and sad little Shadow Shepherd, who finally gets his shot to impress his colleagues, and not one of them can remember his name.

And it’s not because he’s not a good surgeon, it’s just with Shepherd around, who pays attention to the bald dude in glasses? In the end, Derek’s legendary status ends up hurting Derek the most. Because when people expect greatness out of you 24/7, it’s damn near impossible to live up to. You’re bound to take a big fall.

... Shonda’s had this Patient X thing in her head for a long, long time – and when she first pitched it out, I immediately loved it. And hated it. I still love and hate it.

Because it’s so totally messed up and unfair.

What Izzie’s doing, teaching the interns, is a selfless, meaningful endeavor that no one else, even Alex, will ever give her credit for. Everyone’s been busy clamoring for surgeries while Izzie’s quietly achieved the impossible – she’s turned the gaggle of morons we met in season 4 into doctors. And now she’s DYING. And no one gets her, and no one knows it, and it’s seriously UNFAIR.

Follow the link to continue reading Jenna's blog ...

Grey's Anatomy writer Pete Nowalk, who penned last night's episode, have posted some thoughts on "An Honest Mistake" on the show's official writers' blog.

Here are some excerpts, with a link to the full column below ...

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When you’re writing an episode about God-like doctors it helps to have God-like actors playing them. Which is pretty much what happens every week on Grey’s Anatomy.

Sometimes though you get an extra dose of God, or as was the case in this episode, many extra doses. Kate Walsh visiting from Private Practice? Check.

Jennifer Westfeldt and Ben Shenkman playing a husband and wife suffering through round after round of nailbiting surgery? Double check. A certain Oscar-winning actress who is as close to God as one can get in Hollywood? Yup, I’m talking about Faye Dunaway.

Faye Dunaway who was in some movies called Bonnie & Clyde, Chinatown, and Network. Faye Dunaway who was nominated for three Academy Awards. Faye Dunaway who was kind enough to lend her genius to Grey’s Anatomy and, by doing so, make me one giddy writer.

I guess you could say my adoration of Faye is not so different from the way patients come to feel about their doctors. When you allow someone to cut into you and poke around in your very delicate, very fine-tuned insides you have to trust they’re an extra special breed of human.

It’s like what Addison told Derek Shepherd in last week’s episode - that she needed him to be a God in order to trust him to save her brother’s life. And Derek, as usual, was up to the task. Even better, as Mark Sloan told him this week, he looks good doing it.

The dude’s a God, no doubt about it.

Now at this point I imagine some of you are about to yell at your computer. Or me. Something in the vein of “THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU LET HIM CUT OUT THAT WOMAN’S FRONTAL LOBE AND MURDER HER?!! YOU’RE THE MURDERER. A DEREK SHEPHERD MURDERER!!”

Or maybe that’s just what I yelled at myself when we were breaking this story in the Grey's Anatomy writers’ room. A lot of the writers felt the same way. We were nervous to have Derek make a mistake that could possibly be attributed to a patient’s death.

But after much discussion - and real life research with real life surgeons - we agreed that this was a story we had to tell. Doctors, like the rest of us, mess up.

Follow the link to continue reading Pete's blog ...

Grey's Anatomy writers Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, who penned last night's episode, have posted some thoughts on "Before and After" on the show's official writers' blog.

Here are some excerpts, with a link to the full column below ...

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I thought that the thing we really can do with this crossover is show another side of Derek, I just wasn’t sure what that side was. So we started to talk about it.

We always imagined that Derek and Addison met in med school in gross anatomy class and basically fell in love over a cadaver. I know, romantic, right?

But for them I’m sure it was.

We decided Derek and Addison were probably the first of any of their friends to get married and it was probably an amazing wedding and then someone in the room told a story about this wedding they went to once where the guy sang a song he had written for his wife about how they met and fell in love.

Ten years later, whenever anyone who was at that wedding sees this couple, they demand that the song be sung. Hearing this story I suddenly knew that Derek had to be that guy. Because I love that guy. And because it tells you about the group of friends, who all remember the song.  

Addison and Derek: The Seattle Grace days.

They all thought Derek and Addison would be together forever and now here they are, ten years later, divorced. And Naomi is divorced. And Archer is maybe going to die. And so they need the song, they want the song, they want to go back 10 years, when it was all so hopeful and happy and no one was dying.

Now here’s the thing – they don’t really want to go back. Derek and Addison don’t want to go back to being together, that’s not the point. The point is ... It’s like when you look at a picture of yourself from ten years ago and you can’t believe how much you’ve changed.

And you don’t really want to go back there, because you like your life and everything and you certainly don’t want the bad haircut back or the ugly bridesmaid’s dress, but you look at yourself and your old friends in the picture and you realize you haven’t spoken to that friend in years, that person you used to speak to every day, EVERY DAY, and you suddenly, desperately miss that person and have no idea how you got to the point where you don’t even know where they live.

THAT is the feeling we wanted this episode to have.

Follow the link to continue reading the writers' blog.

According to a less than flattering article in the New York Post, Grey's Anatomy is barely hanging on, struggling to keep viewers from pronouncing the show dead.

Read the article on the state of Grey's Anatomy below - which does not reflect the views of this site - and let us know whether you agree with some or all of it:

Grey's Anatomy started out as a fresh and quirky hospital drama that focused on the personal lives of the doctors rather than bizarre medical anomalies, but in recent seasons has distracted viewers with disturbing cases and depressing plot lines.

This year, love is back on the fever charts.

Desperate for a ratings boost, ABC has paired Grey's Anatomy with its spinoff, Private Practice, in a two-hour crossover event which will feature the return of Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh) to Seattle Grace Hospital.

The timing couldn't be worse for the show's main character, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). Despite its ups and downs, the only remnant of the good old days on Grey's Anatomy is the relationship between neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) and resident Meredith.

Last week's episode, "Beat Your Heart Out" was supposed to end with Derek's marriage proposal to Meredith, which would have been a landmark event for the series - and fans rooting for MerDer to find their version of happily ever after.

We say "Supposed to" because, alas, McDreamy's plan ultimately went awry when he received an urgent call from California - his ex-wife Addison begging for his help saving her brother Archer's life and setting up this week's crossover special.

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Grey's Anatomy writer Bill Harper, who penned last night's episode, has posted his thoughts on "Beat Your Heart Out" on the show's official writers' blog for the fans.

Below are some excerpts, with a link to the full column at the bottom ...

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I felt especially close to Derek as he spends the day trying to plan the perfect proposal. (Can we just take a second here to say DEREK’S GOING TO PROPOSE. Who would have thought that a drunken tussle on Ellis’s living room rug would lead to this? Not Meredith, I bet.)

And while Derek’s twisting himself inside out to keep this surprise for Meredith Grey, trying to find exactly the right way to do it, all of his efforts are actually backfiring, sending the wrong signals and sending her into a panic. Romance and Panic Attacks.

As this episode began taking shape in the writer’s room, it became clear that these two main factors that would be at work. Either people were experiencing one or the other, or one was leading directly to the other. Romance and Panic Attacks.

Which go together, I thought at the time, like peanut butter and clams.

Start with Cristina and Owen, who have maybe the most romantic day I’ve ever seen. Shonda was very interested in the hotness of the chasteness between these two. We had lots of discussions of the tortured sensuality of the Victorian Era, where a hand placed next to another’s hand could be so electric, so concentrated, that it was actually better than sex.

To go further, to consummate that kind of compressed excitement, would be to risk losing it. And I loved that in Seattle Grace, where people famously steal into on-call rooms between surgeries, these two were living a bodice-ripping romance novel under everyone’s noses. Cristina doesn’t even have words for what this is. So they choose to long for each other for a while. And it’s painful, but in that way that you sort of don’t want it to stop.  It’s clear they’re both loving it.

Meanwhile, Mark and Lexie, at the height of romance, start to crumble under all the secrecy.

Follow the link to continue reading Bill's blog ...

Well? What did you think? How did last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy - with its various, intertwining story lines and characters - stack up in your mind? Tell us below ...

What did you think of "Stairway to Heaven"?

Grey's Anatomy writer Mark Wilding, who penned last night's episode, has posted his thoughts on "Stairway to Heaven" on the show's official writers' blog for the fans.

Below are some excerpts, with a link to the full column at the bottom ...

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The first and most obvious relationship that needs commenting on is Cristina and Meredith’s. Yes folks, the rift is finally over. And it ended the way most rifts end.

Not with profound apologies on either side but with the sense that this argument has just gone on too long, that life’s too short to prolong the misery. How many great friends do you get in your life? Like real soul mate friends?

And do you want to lose that soul mate friend over something that, a month later, now seems trivial? Meredith and Cristina are a couple of strong personalities.

I don’t know that we could ever have gotten them to offer up mutual apologies – with both of them shouldering a measure of the blame - and actually believe it as an audience. And Derek pretty much spoke for the viewers when he said isn’t it about time to wrap up the fighting - that Meredith and Cristina need each other.  

If only to freak out to each other when something really big happens. In this case, a possible proposal. And even though it looked like Derek might be so put off by Meredith’s charitable behavior towards William that he would never propose, we got the nice, lump in the throat, surprise at the end of the episode when Derek shows up outside the prison.

A nice surprise because a couple of seasons ago, he might have been so disgusted with her behavior that he might not have shown up.  

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Grey's Anatomy writer Jenna Bans, who authored last night's episode, has posted some thoughts on "Sympathy For the Devil" on the show's official writers' blog for the fans.

Below is an excerpt, with a link to the full column at the bottom ...

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I like to pretend [doctors] have all the answers to explain every possible anomaly of the human body, that they learned all these answers in a very popular med school course called “THE ANSWERS!” Sadly, this is not the case. There is no such course.

And so they graduate and become doctors without having all the answers. They learn how to use good judgment to get close to the answers ... and then they guess. And sometimes they’re right. And sometimes they’re wrong. And sometimes it’s too close to call, which brings me to...

Meredith Grey’s judgment as a doctor.

Man, was it tested thoroughly tonight. When adorable serial killer Eric Stolz makes his argument, that this dying kid needs organs, that he is a match for said dying kid, and that he is about to be lethal injection toast in a mere five days, Meredith sort of ... agrees.

As much as she doesn’t want to agree with a serial killer, as much as Derek makes a very good argument that the guy’s trying to screw the system and it’s not their job as surgeons to help him do it ... she still agrees. Because a kid is dying.

Because Bailey, unflappable Bailey, is out of ideas and seems utterly broken by that. Because perfectly good organs are going to waste. So she betrays Derek and the oath she took to do no harm, and she does harm.

She does harm for what she tells herself, is the greater good - and she helps a patient try to kill himself. Which is why I love Mer in this episode – agree with her or not, she makes a bold, consequences be damned, choice in the end.

She just can’t help doing what she thinks is right even if it seems so, so wrong. Even if it comes back to bite her in the ass HARD in the next episode – and by the way, I can’t wait ‘til you all see what happens, because it is truly awesome.

She does this because, like Carolyn Shepherd points out to Derek at the end, she doesn’t just see things in black and white, she sees the grey.

Carolyn Shepherd has arrived.

Nothing was more fun on set than to watch Tyne Daly become Derek’s mom. Because she did BECOME Derek’s mom. She was tough and no-nonsense and I don’t blame Mer for being scared out of her mind. I’d wear an absurdly high ponytail too if Carolyn came sniffing around me, checking me out, making sure I was good enough for her son.

Follow the link to continue reading Jenna's blog ...

So, Grey's Anatomy is officially back in 2009. Was it worth the wait, or did last night's episode fall short of your expectations? Tell us what you thought about it in the informal survey below ...

What did you think of "Wish You Were Here"?