I’m not going to lie to you; I’ve been looking forward to this premiere for a long time. This is one show that can range from “guilty pleasure” to “quality program” often within the span of a scene. But the reason why I don’t wear my love for Grey’s on my sleeve is that I’m pretty emotionally invested in the program so much so that it embarrasses me at times.
And just to put everything out no the table; I’m a fan of Addison. She’s the one that I care about, she’s the one that I root for. But I’ll probably gush on her later. For now let’s jump to the premiere.
I pretty much enjoyed it. It was clearly designed to focus on characters and themes as opposed to stories. I mean the whole “14 year old having a baby” story was wrapped up way quickly and served pretty much only to mirror Addison’s “regret/doing something you’re ashamed of and trying to pretend that it never happened” anguish. And the whole plague thing set up a) Webber’s marital turmoil and b) a situation where George and Derek are together. But apart from that I enjoyed it.
Ok, that’s overstating it. I thought that Izzy doing her best impression of the guy from Radiohead’s video for “Just” was kind of annoying, even if it did yield some pretty good floor acting.
I mean, while I understand that Denny did die, I’m reluctant to call him her “fiancé.” It’s not like they had a long courtship or even had a date set. Call me old fashioned, but I think that “fiancé” should denote more that just popping the question. She’s being overtly dramatic.
The George and Derek scenes were pretty good. I dug the dynamic between the two. Two guys who slept with Meredith to vastly differing results. I dug how Derek took everything in stride while George was, well George.
The flashbacks seemed kind of cheap. I didn’t dig how Cristina used it to kiss up. I really didn’t dig how Meredith has vague memories of Ellis and Webber’s break up. The Izzy and Alex moment was tolerable, but unnecessary. Seeing Addison so vulnerable in her flashback was quite a departure from the character that we’ve seen, which is probably why is resonated more. I’m hoping that we don’t flashback often this season.
I just noticed that Bailey works best when conflict is involved. Usually it’s her and the interns, but this week she actually had to deal with authority over her. It sucked to see her with her hands tied, but the result was some amazing opposite side of the door acting, so some good did come from it.
I guess that it’s a good sign that I didn’t notice the lack of Burke this week. It really didn’t realize until he and Cristina had their moment at the end.
Probably my biggest gripe is that while someone decided who they wanted to be with, it was Derek who picked Meredith. I mean last season ended with Meredith having to choose between Derek or the Vet. And she didn’t make a decision.
It was cool to see them both plead their case to her (note to Finn; never bad mouth the competition, it makes you look petty), but since it’s Meredith we know that her choice will be dragged out as long as possible, because that’s what she does.
I’m not even going to address the while underwear incident, as it causes my blood to boil. Ugh, it really irks me.
What we really ended up with was a decent season premiere. Not all of the stops were pulled out, but the seeds were planted for the storylines of the season, which was really the point, I think.
