Grace White, a longtime blogger for Extra Inning Softball’s “Inside Pitch” series, finished her college career this spring as a senior for her Division II Union University Bulldogs and received her diploma after she majored in Journalism.
She is now “entering the big girl world!” as she puts it after also being the Sports Editor for the Cardinal & Cream, the school’s student publication, and has a younger sister who plays in the Virginia Unity club organization.
Grace, like all athletes, has had down time from school and sports and looked for something to provide a distraction from the stressors in life.
Today’s “Inside Pitch” from her covers one of her favorite TV shows, Grey’s Anatomy and how Grace first found out about and why it’s had such an impact in her life. As she puts it, “All of these people are flawed. They experience trauma. They find love. We see ourselves in them, and we also accept them as family.”
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The first episode of Grey’s Anatomy, a medical drama created by Shonda Rhimes that follows the life of surgeon Meredith Grey, aired on March 27, 2005.
I was three years old.
Since then, Criminal Minds started, ended, and was renewed for a 16th season. Scandal, another of Shonda Rhimes’ creations, went through seven seasons. The entire Marvel Infinity Saga (23 movies) was released. The United States voted in four presidential elections, and Apple introduced the iPhone, which has seen over 20 different models released since 2007.
All of these things have happened, yet Grey’s Anatomy is still going strong. The show is set to start its 20th season, probably in the Fall of 2023.
This begs the question:
“What makes Grey’s Anatomy so appealing that it has been on TV since 2005?”
I’ve been mulling over this question, and I believe I’ve come up with an answer… one that at least explains why I personally keep watching and rewatching it.
Although I was three when Season 1 began, I didn’t watch Grey’s for the first time until the Fall of 2020, which was the first semester of my sophomore year of college.
The COVID pandemic had hit earlier in the year, so quarantining and isolating were in effect for those who were exposed to the virus. My roommates and I all got quarantined at the same time, and it just so happens that one of them is probably the biggest Grey’s fan you’ll ever meet.
She can tell you what happens in just about every season, and if you’re searching for a particular episode, she can help you with that too.
One day, she had Grey’s on in the living room. It was one of the later seasons, and I didn’t really know what was happening. When she found out that I had never seen it, she put it on Season 1, Episode 1, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The show is built around Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo) but really the entire cast of characters from Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) and Mark Sloan (Eric Dane) to Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) are people that you can relate to and empathize with:
- Meredith struggles to step out of the shadow of her mother, who was a brilliant and well-known surgeon.
- Derek has to be patient with Meredith as she works through uncertainty and doubt in their relationship.
- Mark grows from a “man-whore” into a father and someone that is ready to settle down in a serious relationship.
- Miranda has to decide when her husband gives her an ultimatum: surgery or him.
- Cristina almost gives up being a surgeon after a hospital shooting leaves her with PTSD.
All of these people are flawed. They experience trauma. They find love. We see ourselves in them, and we also accept them as family.
When the show begins, we see Meredith and Derek the morning after their first meeting, and we witness the first day for Meredith and the other interns in her class.
Fast forward almost 20 years and Meredith has become an accomplished general surgery attending, the only one still on the show from the original five interns, which also included Yang, Alex Karev, Izzie Stevens, and George O’Malley.
We as the audience are invited into the lives of these characters. We get to see every triumph and failure. We cry when beloved characters die, and we get all mushy inside when romance sparks.
I feel all of these things when I’m watching Grey’s.
It’s one of my comfort shows because of the familiarity. If Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang were real people, I think that I could walk into a room with them and already know them.
Part of me sometimes wishes that Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital were a real place, and in my mind, when I’m engrossed in the drama, it IS real. I think that’s the mark of a great TV show: it carries you to a far-off place away from the busyness of everyday life where you can be at peace and escape.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that other people besides me feel the same way because I believe this is one reason the show has stayed around as long as it has. Nobody wants the fantasy to end.
However, we have to be careful that we don’t carry the dream around with us because real-life isn’t the same as a TV drama, no matter how much we may want it to be.
I’m as guilty as anybody when it comes to living in the fantasy. I want the happily-ever-after and the hospital where no surgery is impossible.
However, as much as we need to be thankful for the moments of escape we can get from a TV show, we also need to be present in the reality of everyday life.
— Grace White, Extra Inning Softball correspondent
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