Friday, September 15, 2006

Grey's Catastrophe

Okay, so I have a confession to make which might cost me all of my cyber friends: before last night, I had never seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy. I'm not sure what rock I was hiding under last year; perhaps I was so torn up about the ending of West Wing and the whole Rori/Logan debacle on Gilmore Girls that I was simply blind to the rest of the TV world. (You'd think I would have at least followed along via my beloved Television Without Pity. But no. ) Anyway. My cluelessness came to an end last night - we got home from the gym (yay!) and there it was at 8:00pm - a chance to acquaint myself with the source of 90% of all pop culture references from the past nine months.

I'm not sure what I expected, but my overall first impression was....this show is kinda grim. I mean, sure, the characters are attractive, and they make me feel quite sane and normal in comparison, but honestly...even the dog has cancer??? It felt a little like Party of Five, if Charlie, Julia, and Bailey all went to med school and now watched other people's parents die. I have to ask, does ANYTHING happy ever happen to these people? In two episodes, I saw two babies born to dead or dying mothers, a doctor purposely stopping her boyfriend's heart so that another doctor - who she's sure is on his way - can restart it and give him a new one...only THAT doctor gets shot on his way into the hospital...and all these women doctors live together with a surgeon who can slice people open but doesn't have enough of moxie to ask them to leave the bathroom so she can pee???? I mean come on... I freely admit that I'm way too far behind to try and dissect the Patrick Dempsey love triangle (although I kinda dig the name Addison) Anyway, it was a less-than-stellar introduction. But if you're one of the people who love, love, loves this show, please tell me why!!!

In other news, how much of a DORK am I that in my extended raving about Andrea Seigel's dance at Tuesday night's reading, I completely failed to mention the OTHER author I saw that night, who was also amazing: Kiran Desai. Her latest book, The Inheritance of Loss is short-listed for the Booker Prize, which is a fairly big deal. Much is being made about the fact that Kiran's mother has been shortlisted for the Booker in the past, but I think that's a little silly. My father was a nationally ranked golfer in his younger days and yet I chose to twirl a baton - brilliance doesn't always translate down thorough the generations! I bought Kiran's first book, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard based on title alone, but now I will save it for my flight to St. Louis next week, so that if anybody asks I can say, "Yes, she's a wonderful author. Shortlisted for the Booker, you know..." And no one but you and I will know that I Googled "Booker Prize" a few minutes ago to figure out what, exactly, it is :)

Last, but not least, TODAY is the last day for voting on my website contests. There are two: the first is for the best lawyer jokes, and there is some competition in this catagory. Some folks have emailed their entries rather than posting them (I guess to avoid other people stealing their jokes?) but if you make me laugh really hard, there's still room for victory. Prizes are brand new copies of Philip Beard's Dear Zoe and Beth Orsoff's Romantically Challenged. So bring over a good joke (if it's really funny and doesn't contain lawyers, go ahead and post it) and make my day :)

The second contest (scroll down a bit) is WIDE OPEN: make a guess as to my dog's gentic heritage. Previous guesses have ranged from daschund to rottweiler, and I'll say this much: neither of those are (as much as I can tell) part of her pedigree. I'm upping the stakes here: if anyone guesses correctly, you've earned yourself a copy of ANY book I list on my booklist.

Winners will be announced on Monday. Why should Rosie and Oprah be the only ones who get to give stuff away ??? :)

8 comments:

Nancy French said...

Skip Grey's and go straight to SURVIVOR!!

Did you see it last night? With all the race hype, I was interested in how it would play out. very compelling stuff.

Barbie Jo Mahoney said...

sorry, I only watched the first 2 maybe 3 episodes of Grey's. That came out at about the same time Scrubs did and I didn't like Scrubs, and if memory serves me, Grey's fell on the wayside due to me finding time to write OR watching West Wing (which I loved and am soo upset it's over) I think I did try to sneak in an episode of Grey's at a later date, and it didn't do much for me.

Survivor, too. They lost their appeal after about the 4th one. Now it's not about the game, it's about plotting and being nasty. Human nature at it's worst.

Whatever happened to the fun, family programming that had you laughing and forgetting about all the grim, nasty things going on in the world. Anyone remember Home Improvement? (ok so I'm dating myself) But that was a fun show. What even compares now a days.

Trish Ryan said...

I missed SURVIVOR - although I thought of it earlier at the gym, as I was trying to balance on just my toes and elbows for a full minute. All those challenges they have to do are WAY harder than supporting your body weight for 60 seconds, so I'll probably never win that million dollars! On the flip side, though, if I go to a tropical island, it will be for vacation - no nefarious alliances needed!

Alyssa Goodnight said...

I've never seen Grey's Anatomy or Survivor. But I did really love West Wing. I'm hoping Aaron Sorkin's new show this season will come close to replacing it on my personal TV totem pole.

MaNiC MoMMy™ said...

Never seen a whole episode of Grey's. Shoot me, I know! But I did see Can't Buy Me Love in 198whatever.

And Swishy is right here and she's gonna tell ya why you should love Grey's...

Introducing.... SWISHY.....

xxxx said...

OK, that is my most favoritest show ever! You came in at a bad, bad time. They were trying to hype the drama because it was the season finale. Usually it is very funny, along with all the angst. Rent the first season on DVD--or if you promise to give it back, you can borrow mine :) No, really, it's only like nine episodes. Watch them!!

(Oh, yeah--you asked why I love it. Because the writing is fantastic, and the characters are flawed, and the Derek-Meredith-Addison triangle is super realistic. Annoyingly so! But the most realistic one I've ever seen on TV.)

Anonymous said...

I've seen only one (2-hour) episode of Grey's Anatomy--the one that aired last winter right after the Superbowl--and it was the one where they blew up Kyle Chandler. If they had me at "Hello," they lost me at "Kaboom."

I agree with the opinion that we need less angst in our entertainment. The only reality show I can stomach is Dancing With the Stars, and for comedies I recommend My Name Is Earl. He's "just trying to be a better person," and he can carry off the fu manchu mustache. :)

Vintage Wine said...

I`m so glad you dropped by my blog, because now I found yours :-)

I`ve tagged you, by the way :-) Thought it would be a good way to learn a bit more about you...