The science of bursting into songs

[javiera]

After weeks of hard work and a horrible headache and driving classes and a bachelorette party, I finally got to watch the infamous musical episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Comments

[javiera]

Once More With Feelings is one of my favorites episodes of Buffy ever (The 6th season was my fav all around, I think) AND I think it was very well done. I rather make the comparison with Scrubs, though, because it has lots of similarities with Grey's (it started with a group of interns going through the ups and downs of becoming doctors, it had lots of in-hospital relationships, it starts and ends with a narration made by the protagonist, sometimes that narration is done by the other characters on special episodes, it had interesting patients, and while mostly a funny show, it had very intense angsty moments), even the fact that a musical came to life in the show because it was happening in the head of a patient, it was done by Scrubs first!!

Case in point:

I just keep thinking of all those shows that had musicals incorporated in their stories. It CAN be done, damn it! With Grey's it didn't work because they take themselves way too seriously over things that make little sense and shouldn't be taken seriously and they weren't serious enough to understand that a musical number needs a bit more than just people *singing*. Another reason I liked "Running on Sunshine" was because they worked the lights to make it look like *sunshine* was pouring in. How about if you're giving Callie a dramatic moment, why not dim the lights a bit? how about a camera work that makes a scene distinctive of whatever else we've seen on the show for seven seasons? Why not makes us actually believe Callie or her baby weren't going to make it? Not a song about her past "story", but about the *future* she wants to have and maybe she won't get! You know how many songs on the subject exists out there just in English?

Ahhh, this makes me mad XP

[javiera]

I wonder if Shonda ever got help from a musicals producer or a director? OK, she didn't want a typical musical (except for when she did want it as is showed with Running on Sunshine). Still, you need help from someone who knows how to tell a story through songs and they certainly didn't have someone to do that.

And you're right. On top of everything else, we didn't get answers on issues that could have been resolved, like Callie's perspective on the big mess she's in. We get a truce between Arizona and Mark, and that's great, but if everyone was singing around, why couldn't THAT be resolved in a song? Scrubs sang a lot of silly songs, but some of them, like the ones in Buffy, were about the issues of the moments, what was going on inside the characters' heads. There was a HUGE lack of that this time around.

...

Oh, gods. I just pictured Arizona and Mark going at it like Joanne and Mark in "Tango Maureen" from RENT LOL XDDD

I also loved Scrubs. It baffles me that shows like Grey's and House got to be so popular when Scrubs Did-It-First. I guess I loved the huge amount of continuity it had for such a small show, and as you said, how they could just burst into song and it was OK, it was just as quirky as everything else on the show!