spotlight on fandoms: grey's anatomy
BASIC PREMISE
You haven't really experienced a medical drama until you've experienced Grey's Anatomy. In a way, it's redefined the term medical drama to mean a show where the characters all sleep with, backstab, fight with, undermine, yell at, flirt with, and, sometimes, support each other. And, you know, sometimes there are patients and there's medical stuff. Sometimes. It seems to take a backseat to the personal drama the characters suffer though. And really, thats' what we want, right? We want the drama!
Grey's Anatomy is set in Seattle Grace Memorial, a fictional hospital that seems to be magnet for drama and excruciating injuries. It's like the Baywatch beach only it's a hospital. It follows the lives of five surgical interns and the people that both mentor and, sometimes, sleep with them. No, I'm not kidding.
The show has currently aired five seasons and has been renewed for a sixth. I guess they haven't squeezed enough drama out of these poor doctors yet.
The show centers on Meredith Grey who is the most ANNOYING protagonist in the history of ever. When the show begins, we're brought into Meredith's life and how she (and the other interns) began their stays at SGH. The first season is mostly based on their time in the internship program where we get to see Meredith sleep with a full fledged doctor on the day before her internship starts (and thus begins the BORESHIP of Meredith/Derek), George before he went all weird and stopped getting screentime in the later seasons, Alex when he was at his worst, Izzie before Katherine Heigl opened her big mouth, Yang being awesome (which she still is), Bailey being awesome (which she still is) and Burke before he got fired.
At the end of the season, we get the introduction of Addison, who is the MOST AWESOME EVER, and things really start to get interesting since Meredith's been boinking Derek and Addison just happens to be his ex-wife. Ooops. Too bad, Meredith. Go emo some more.
CHARACTERS
Meredith Grey
The protagonist. The one who always looks like she's going to cry or whine or something. Meredith Grey is the only child born to Ellis and Thatcher Grey. She attended Dartmouth, partied like you do and still graduated despite all that. Of course, as is life for Meredith, she had trouble finding a job afterward because of her previous behavior but was able to land a job at SGH. So, what does she do on the first night of her internship? She sleeps with Derek Shepherd. At the time, she doesn't know that Derek's a doctor at SGH so it's causes the DRAMAZ when she sees him. Derek, of course, doesn't seen any issue with it but it causes much emo and woe for Meredith. As most things do. You'll notice a pattern with Meredith. If things don't cause her emo, something is VERY wrong. Anyway, the Derek/Meredith relationship is boring and bounces back and forth all the damn time. I tend to ignore it. But, of course, they have to throw more fuel on Meredith's fire and Derek leaves Meredith for Addison at the beginning of the second season, Meredith finds out that her mother had an affair with SGH's attending physician, she dies (in one of the silliest plots ever) but gets better and she finds out she has two half sisters (Molly and Lexie) that she didn't know about previously. If it's not one thing, it's another with Meredith.
Cristina Yang
Where Meredith is flaky, Cristina is strong as steel. She believes only in science and she's a strong atheist. Cristina is incredibly focused and driven (probably more than any other intern) and is always looking for a chance to scrub in on a surgery. She's not afraid to outright ASK to scrub in but she'll do just about anything to get in on a surgery. She's an excellent surgeon and she's incredibly smart, with the intelligence to back up those skills. Her social skills, though, barely exists. She has trouble conveying her feelings and dislikes being touched. This is important because she has a brusque bedside manner and has trouble empathizing with patients. She's gotten better at it but yeah, if you see her coming, be prepared for some brutal truth and nothing sugar coated. Cristina also has difficulty with the emotions involved with losing a loved one. This directly stems from watching her father die in a car accident when she was a kid. Cristina, like Meredith, seems to find all her potential hookups in the hospital. She dated and almost married Preston Burke before hooking up with Owen Hunt. Of course, Preston left her at the altar and Owen unintentionally harmed Cristina due to PTSD he was suffering so it's not all roses and hearts for Cristina and her men.
Izzie Stevens
Izzie is the stereotypical pretty girl. And she knows she's fighting against this stereotype when she begins her internship at SGH. To raise the money to go to medical school, she became a lingerie model, a fact Alex exposes and has no trouble telling just about anyone who will listen. It's hard to imagine those two crazy kids ended up together, ain't it? Where Cristina is the unemotional one, Izzie is VERY emotional and very involved with patients and that's come to bite her back in the ass. This was greatly illustrated in the case of Denny Duquette, a heart patient that Izzie fell in love with. She went on to risk her career for him and then was wrecked when he died AFTER getting a new heart and a new lease on life. His death made Izzie doubt her commitment to medicine but she, eventually, recommitted. Izzie's also had an on again off again relationship with Alex (and it's currently on after an episode that made me weep, stupid show) and George (which was just all kinds of bad). We're not even going to talk about dead!Denny. We're just not. Last season was the season of Izzie's Illness. There was a lot of behind the scenes dramaz going on and there were constant rumors of Katherine Heigl leaving the show. Sure enough, she got stuck with a metastatic melanoma and most people thought she'd be killed off. As last season ended, she had flatlined and her future was in doubt (of course, there were later confirmations that solved this but the cliffhanger was wrecking just for freaking Alex's reaction to it all).
George O' Malley
George is that guy, that adorable guy that's in love with you but you fail to notice. George is the one who you eat Chinese food with, whose shoulder you cry on and who you never know is pining away for you until it's too late. That's George. George has been in love with Meredith Grey (and I don't know why, GEORGE YOU CAN DO BETTER) since he met her. How does Meredith repay that? By being his friend and then sleeping with him when things with Derek weren't going well. Poor George. He goes through a lot of shit during his stay on the show. He gets the honor of performing the first surgery out of all the interns but he chokes and ears the nickname 007. Of course, he redeems himself (in front of Alex, no less) when Alex freezes up during a trauma and George is walked through saving a patient's life by Preston Burke. After the disaster with Meredith, George meets Callie Torres, an ortho surgeon (seriously, these guys keep it in the family) and they eventually marry. It's not a GREAT marriage but hey, nothing ever is happy on this show. And they kept piling it on George for awhile. He has to watch his father die and then it's revealed that he failed his intern exams which means he's gotta repeat the whole damn thing over again. He does, finally, pass his exams but, of course, his screentime gets cut dramatically and then he ends up getting killed off the damn show after enlisting in the army as a trauma surgeon and getting hit by a bus. He'd flatlined during the season's cliffhanger as well and, with news of T. R. Knight's departure from the show, probably won't be coming back.
Alex Karev
Alex is the obligatory psychotic jackass and probably my faaaaaaaaaavorite. He is not a nice guy. He's brutally honest, choosing to tell patients the truth instead of sugar coating things. This goes over well with some people and not so well with others. He doesn't ingratiate himself well with the other interns because he wants to be better than them all. He KNOWS he is better than them but he wants to show them that he is. His past helped shape the guy he became (his father was an abusive heroin addict, his mother is alluded to having had a nervous breakdown and he beat the shit out of his father and caused his father to leave). When we first meet Alex, he's calling Meredith, Cristina and Izzie names and he's giving George syphilis. Great guy, right? It's mostly up and down for poor Alex. He gets together with Izzie, he finds out that he failed his medical board exams, he reunites with Izzie, she leaves him for Denny, he gets stuck working in the neonatal unit, he finds out he has a talent for it, he hooks up with Addison (HOT OMG), and then falls for a woman with psychiatric problems. That last one pretty much wrecked poor Alex, leaving him crying in Izzie's arms (and me wanting to give him a hug). Alex and Izzie rekindle their relationship even as Izzie's seeing dead!Denny and they were married last season (wherein I cried again after Alex's vows) before Izzie flatlined. The guy's come a long way from the person everyone hated. He's settled down a lot but hasn't completely lost his edge.
Derek Shepherd
The other half of the boreship, Derek's a neurosurgeon at SGH. Derek's pretty much a Prince Charming, the guy that every girl wants to sleep with and the doctor that everyone wants to have operating on their brain. Of course, as we all already know, he and Meredith have a drunken one night stand before her internship and he continues to pursue even as she rebuffs his advances. Eventually, they choose to date until that's interrupted by the arrival of Derek's wife, Addison. Ah, drama. Derek's personality and good looks earn him the nickname McDreamy, a name that's both used in canon and fandom alike. Derek was named Chief of Surgery at the end of season 3 but he chose not to accept the position. The relationship between Meredith and Derek seems to have found solid ground in the most recent season but I doubt that it'll last considering the show's creator seems to love putting these two together and then forcing them apart again.
Miranda Bailey
She. Is. Awesome. There is absolutely no doubt about it and I will bitchslap anyone who thinks otherwise. She's a resident surgeon and was tasked with being the mentor for the five new interns during the first season. She's nicknamed the Nazi (though she denounces this nickname in a later season) for her blunt attitude and tough as nails demeanor but she's shown that she genuinely does care for people, she just does it in her own way. Bailey's a compassionate doctor, showing a caring bedside manner for both actual patients and her interns (she stayed with Cristina during her pregnancy scare and recovery and held Izzie's hand when she was giving bone marrow and supported Izzie during her cancer treatments). In one of the show's more awesome moments, Bailey gave birth to her son during a bomb scare with George's help and even named the baby after George (William George Bailey Jones). She becomes disillusioned with how little she can help patients as a surgeon and, because of this, opens a free clinic at SGH. She discovers a passion for pediatric surgery and is even offered a fellowship in the speciality but refuses because her husband gave her an ultimatum that he'd divorce her if she accepted. She has plans to leave him herself but she was unable to make the commitment due to her impending single motherhood.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Preston Burke
Before leaving the show, Preston was the head of cardiothoracic surgery and was once the interim chief of surgery while Dr. Richard Webber recovered from brain surgery. He was romantically involved with Cristina, even almost marrying but eventually leaving her at the altar and disappearing from the show all together (after some less than PC comments that Isiah Washington made about a fellow castmate). Preston was shot during the second season and that affected his abilities to perform surgery. He tried to cover this up by always working with Cristina and making her cover for him if he was unable to complete the surgery. During the ill fated almost marriage, Preston realizes that he's been trying to make Cristina into the woman that he wants her to be and he no longer wants to do that. When Cristina expresses doubt about the marriage being what she wants, he leaves.
Mark Sloan
Mark Sloan is the go to guy for plastic surgery. He's also the go to guy if you want a nice roll in the sack, apparently. He was once Derek's best friend before he slept with Addison, thus straining Derek and Addison's marriage and Derek and Mark's friendship. He's skilled at the delicate and complex reconstructive surgeries but also performs cosmetic procedures. Mark's got commitment issues (like most everyone on this show) and demonstrates that by having a wide range of flings (Addison and Callie Torres being good examples). Mark gains the nickname McSteamy for obvious reasons and we do like when he takes his shirt off. He has made some progress in settling down though as he's been with Lexie Grey for awhile (and has even met her father). He's trying!
Callie Torres
Callie's an ortho surgeon who was introduced after George dislocated his shoulder. They started a romance that eventually turned into marriage. Of course, they both cheated on each other and that marriage ended. Callie had a fling with Mark but, eventually, realized that she had feelings for Dr. Erica Hahn. Their relationship progresses slowly (with Callie being unsure about a lot of things and going to Mark for advice, of all people) but she and Erica do share a kiss. Of course, Erica's written off the show soon thereafter which caused a pretty big dust up behind the scenes. After that breakup, Callie immerses herself in her work for a long time, still stinging from Erica's departure and her failed marriage to George. She eventually meets Dr. Arizona Robbins and the two end up together.
Addison Montgomery
ALSO AWESOME. And amazingly hot. Addison's a world class neonatal surgeon and Derek Shepherd's ex-wife. Addison is difficult and uncompromising though she has shown tender and soft sides from time to time. She's not afraid to tell you she's better than you and she's not afraid to show you that she has the credentials to back it the hell up either. For a brief time, she and Derek tried to reconcile but she knew she couldn't stand up to Meredith in Derek's eyes so they divorced. She became attracted to Alex Karev after punishing him by putting him on the neonatal unit but was both surprised and upset when she found out that he wasn't interested in her. She ends up leaving SGH for LA and her own show wherein she's still awesome.
Denny Duquette
Denny was a heart patient that Izzie met, treated and fell in love with. She risked her career in medicine for him and was devastated when he passed away. He has since appeared in flashbacks to Meredith and, more recently, to Izzie before it was discovered that Izzie had cancer. She hallucinated Denny for several weeks, even going so far as to have sex with him (don't even ask) before she told him to go away.
Erica Hahn
Hahn's a cardiothoracic surgeon and a damn good one. She's focused, gruff, and highly professional to the point of being a workaholic. She's extremely hard on Yang because Yang reminds her of herself when she was a young student. Hahn became romantically involved with Callie Torres at the end of the fourth season and that storyline was praised for its realistic portrayal of the relationship. Of course, Hahn was written out without much warning in the ensuing fifth season, breaking up with Callie and leaving her job at SGH.
Richard Webber
Richard Webber's the current Chief of Surgery at SGH. When Richard was younger, he had an affair with Meredith's mother, Ellis, and continued visiting Ellis throughout Ellis' battle with Alzheimers. After Richard and his wife, Adele, decided to give their marriage a second try, Richard decided he could no longer carry on an emotional affair with Ellis.
Lexie Grey
Lexie is Meredith's half sister, born to Thatcher Grey and his second wife. She's amazingly smart, having been nicknamed the Lexipedia by Alex Karev and Cristina Yang. Due to her relationship with Meredith, she's not afraid to speak her mind with residents more often than most interns.
Owen Hunt
Owen's an army surgeon who specialized in army trauma. He suffers from PTSD, something that manifests itself when he attacks Cristina unintentionally (via choking her while she sleeps). Cristina ends things because she can't fall asleep in his arms. Owen goes into therapy after their breakup to try and work through the PTSD. It's revealed that the ceiling fan in Cristina's apartment is what triggered Owen's PTSD and Cristina takes it down to try and help Owen. The two do eventually get their act together and have since reunited.
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH
It's a complete and utter soap opera. The storylines are out there, some of the characters are boring and sometimes you just wanna hurl something at the television but then it goes and does something compelling or you find a character you ADORE AND LOVE and you just can't turn away. It's not for everyone, I'll say that but it's a good popcorn show and you won't have to think very hard because it's not like the writers are using their brains for some of the stuff they throw out there.
WHERE CAN I SEE IT
The first four seasons are currently out on DVD (with the recent fifth sure to be coming, I'm sure) and the show will be returning for it's sixth season on ABC come fall. It airs Thursdays at at 9PM EST, right in the middle of primetime.
You haven't really experienced a medical drama until you've experienced Grey's Anatomy. In a way, it's redefined the term medical drama to mean a show where the characters all sleep with, backstab, fight with, undermine, yell at, flirt with, and, sometimes, support each other. And, you know, sometimes there are patients and there's medical stuff. Sometimes. It seems to take a backseat to the personal drama the characters suffer though. And really, thats' what we want, right? We want the drama!
Grey's Anatomy is set in Seattle Grace Memorial, a fictional hospital that seems to be magnet for drama and excruciating injuries. It's like the Baywatch beach only it's a hospital. It follows the lives of five surgical interns and the people that both mentor and, sometimes, sleep with them. No, I'm not kidding.
The show has currently aired five seasons and has been renewed for a sixth. I guess they haven't squeezed enough drama out of these poor doctors yet.
The show centers on Meredith Grey who is the most ANNOYING protagonist in the history of ever. When the show begins, we're brought into Meredith's life and how she (and the other interns) began their stays at SGH. The first season is mostly based on their time in the internship program where we get to see Meredith sleep with a full fledged doctor on the day before her internship starts (and thus begins the BORESHIP of Meredith/Derek), George before he went all weird and stopped getting screentime in the later seasons, Alex when he was at his worst, Izzie before Katherine Heigl opened her big mouth, Yang being awesome (which she still is), Bailey being awesome (which she still is) and Burke before he got fired.
At the end of the season, we get the introduction of Addison, who is the MOST AWESOME EVER, and things really start to get interesting since Meredith's been boinking Derek and Addison just happens to be his ex-wife. Ooops. Too bad, Meredith. Go emo some more.
CHARACTERS
Meredith Grey
The protagonist. The one who always looks like she's going to cry or whine or something. Meredith Grey is the only child born to Ellis and Thatcher Grey. She attended Dartmouth, partied like you do and still graduated despite all that. Of course, as is life for Meredith, she had trouble finding a job afterward because of her previous behavior but was able to land a job at SGH. So, what does she do on the first night of her internship? She sleeps with Derek Shepherd. At the time, she doesn't know that Derek's a doctor at SGH so it's causes the DRAMAZ when she sees him. Derek, of course, doesn't seen any issue with it but it causes much emo and woe for Meredith. As most things do. You'll notice a pattern with Meredith. If things don't cause her emo, something is VERY wrong. Anyway, the Derek/Meredith relationship is boring and bounces back and forth all the damn time. I tend to ignore it. But, of course, they have to throw more fuel on Meredith's fire and Derek leaves Meredith for Addison at the beginning of the second season, Meredith finds out that her mother had an affair with SGH's attending physician, she dies (in one of the silliest plots ever) but gets better and she finds out she has two half sisters (Molly and Lexie) that she didn't know about previously. If it's not one thing, it's another with Meredith.
Cristina Yang
Where Meredith is flaky, Cristina is strong as steel. She believes only in science and she's a strong atheist. Cristina is incredibly focused and driven (probably more than any other intern) and is always looking for a chance to scrub in on a surgery. She's not afraid to outright ASK to scrub in but she'll do just about anything to get in on a surgery. She's an excellent surgeon and she's incredibly smart, with the intelligence to back up those skills. Her social skills, though, barely exists. She has trouble conveying her feelings and dislikes being touched. This is important because she has a brusque bedside manner and has trouble empathizing with patients. She's gotten better at it but yeah, if you see her coming, be prepared for some brutal truth and nothing sugar coated. Cristina also has difficulty with the emotions involved with losing a loved one. This directly stems from watching her father die in a car accident when she was a kid. Cristina, like Meredith, seems to find all her potential hookups in the hospital. She dated and almost married Preston Burke before hooking up with Owen Hunt. Of course, Preston left her at the altar and Owen unintentionally harmed Cristina due to PTSD he was suffering so it's not all roses and hearts for Cristina and her men.
Izzie Stevens
Izzie is the stereotypical pretty girl. And she knows she's fighting against this stereotype when she begins her internship at SGH. To raise the money to go to medical school, she became a lingerie model, a fact Alex exposes and has no trouble telling just about anyone who will listen. It's hard to imagine those two crazy kids ended up together, ain't it? Where Cristina is the unemotional one, Izzie is VERY emotional and very involved with patients and that's come to bite her back in the ass. This was greatly illustrated in the case of Denny Duquette, a heart patient that Izzie fell in love with. She went on to risk her career for him and then was wrecked when he died AFTER getting a new heart and a new lease on life. His death made Izzie doubt her commitment to medicine but she, eventually, recommitted. Izzie's also had an on again off again relationship with Alex (and it's currently on after an episode that made me weep, stupid show) and George (which was just all kinds of bad). We're not even going to talk about dead!Denny. We're just not. Last season was the season of Izzie's Illness. There was a lot of behind the scenes dramaz going on and there were constant rumors of Katherine Heigl leaving the show. Sure enough, she got stuck with a metastatic melanoma and most people thought she'd be killed off. As last season ended, she had flatlined and her future was in doubt (of course, there were later confirmations that solved this but the cliffhanger was wrecking just for freaking Alex's reaction to it all).
George O' Malley
George is that guy, that adorable guy that's in love with you but you fail to notice. George is the one who you eat Chinese food with, whose shoulder you cry on and who you never know is pining away for you until it's too late. That's George. George has been in love with Meredith Grey (and I don't know why, GEORGE YOU CAN DO BETTER) since he met her. How does Meredith repay that? By being his friend and then sleeping with him when things with Derek weren't going well. Poor George. He goes through a lot of shit during his stay on the show. He gets the honor of performing the first surgery out of all the interns but he chokes and ears the nickname 007. Of course, he redeems himself (in front of Alex, no less) when Alex freezes up during a trauma and George is walked through saving a patient's life by Preston Burke. After the disaster with Meredith, George meets Callie Torres, an ortho surgeon (seriously, these guys keep it in the family) and they eventually marry. It's not a GREAT marriage but hey, nothing ever is happy on this show. And they kept piling it on George for awhile. He has to watch his father die and then it's revealed that he failed his intern exams which means he's gotta repeat the whole damn thing over again. He does, finally, pass his exams but, of course, his screentime gets cut dramatically and then he ends up getting killed off the damn show after enlisting in the army as a trauma surgeon and getting hit by a bus. He'd flatlined during the season's cliffhanger as well and, with news of T. R. Knight's departure from the show, probably won't be coming back.
Alex Karev
Alex is the obligatory psychotic jackass and probably my faaaaaaaaaavorite. He is not a nice guy. He's brutally honest, choosing to tell patients the truth instead of sugar coating things. This goes over well with some people and not so well with others. He doesn't ingratiate himself well with the other interns because he wants to be better than them all. He KNOWS he is better than them but he wants to show them that he is. His past helped shape the guy he became (his father was an abusive heroin addict, his mother is alluded to having had a nervous breakdown and he beat the shit out of his father and caused his father to leave). When we first meet Alex, he's calling Meredith, Cristina and Izzie names and he's giving George syphilis. Great guy, right? It's mostly up and down for poor Alex. He gets together with Izzie, he finds out that he failed his medical board exams, he reunites with Izzie, she leaves him for Denny, he gets stuck working in the neonatal unit, he finds out he has a talent for it, he hooks up with Addison (HOT OMG), and then falls for a woman with psychiatric problems. That last one pretty much wrecked poor Alex, leaving him crying in Izzie's arms (and me wanting to give him a hug). Alex and Izzie rekindle their relationship even as Izzie's seeing dead!Denny and they were married last season (wherein I cried again after Alex's vows) before Izzie flatlined. The guy's come a long way from the person everyone hated. He's settled down a lot but hasn't completely lost his edge.
Derek Shepherd
The other half of the boreship, Derek's a neurosurgeon at SGH. Derek's pretty much a Prince Charming, the guy that every girl wants to sleep with and the doctor that everyone wants to have operating on their brain. Of course, as we all already know, he and Meredith have a drunken one night stand before her internship and he continues to pursue even as she rebuffs his advances. Eventually, they choose to date until that's interrupted by the arrival of Derek's wife, Addison. Ah, drama. Derek's personality and good looks earn him the nickname McDreamy, a name that's both used in canon and fandom alike. Derek was named Chief of Surgery at the end of season 3 but he chose not to accept the position. The relationship between Meredith and Derek seems to have found solid ground in the most recent season but I doubt that it'll last considering the show's creator seems to love putting these two together and then forcing them apart again.
Miranda Bailey
She. Is. Awesome. There is absolutely no doubt about it and I will bitchslap anyone who thinks otherwise. She's a resident surgeon and was tasked with being the mentor for the five new interns during the first season. She's nicknamed the Nazi (though she denounces this nickname in a later season) for her blunt attitude and tough as nails demeanor but she's shown that she genuinely does care for people, she just does it in her own way. Bailey's a compassionate doctor, showing a caring bedside manner for both actual patients and her interns (she stayed with Cristina during her pregnancy scare and recovery and held Izzie's hand when she was giving bone marrow and supported Izzie during her cancer treatments). In one of the show's more awesome moments, Bailey gave birth to her son during a bomb scare with George's help and even named the baby after George (William George Bailey Jones). She becomes disillusioned with how little she can help patients as a surgeon and, because of this, opens a free clinic at SGH. She discovers a passion for pediatric surgery and is even offered a fellowship in the speciality but refuses because her husband gave her an ultimatum that he'd divorce her if she accepted. She has plans to leave him herself but she was unable to make the commitment due to her impending single motherhood.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Preston Burke
Before leaving the show, Preston was the head of cardiothoracic surgery and was once the interim chief of surgery while Dr. Richard Webber recovered from brain surgery. He was romantically involved with Cristina, even almost marrying but eventually leaving her at the altar and disappearing from the show all together (after some less than PC comments that Isiah Washington made about a fellow castmate). Preston was shot during the second season and that affected his abilities to perform surgery. He tried to cover this up by always working with Cristina and making her cover for him if he was unable to complete the surgery. During the ill fated almost marriage, Preston realizes that he's been trying to make Cristina into the woman that he wants her to be and he no longer wants to do that. When Cristina expresses doubt about the marriage being what she wants, he leaves.
Mark Sloan
Mark Sloan is the go to guy for plastic surgery. He's also the go to guy if you want a nice roll in the sack, apparently. He was once Derek's best friend before he slept with Addison, thus straining Derek and Addison's marriage and Derek and Mark's friendship. He's skilled at the delicate and complex reconstructive surgeries but also performs cosmetic procedures. Mark's got commitment issues (like most everyone on this show) and demonstrates that by having a wide range of flings (Addison and Callie Torres being good examples). Mark gains the nickname McSteamy for obvious reasons and we do like when he takes his shirt off. He has made some progress in settling down though as he's been with Lexie Grey for awhile (and has even met her father). He's trying!
Callie Torres
Callie's an ortho surgeon who was introduced after George dislocated his shoulder. They started a romance that eventually turned into marriage. Of course, they both cheated on each other and that marriage ended. Callie had a fling with Mark but, eventually, realized that she had feelings for Dr. Erica Hahn. Their relationship progresses slowly (with Callie being unsure about a lot of things and going to Mark for advice, of all people) but she and Erica do share a kiss. Of course, Erica's written off the show soon thereafter which caused a pretty big dust up behind the scenes. After that breakup, Callie immerses herself in her work for a long time, still stinging from Erica's departure and her failed marriage to George. She eventually meets Dr. Arizona Robbins and the two end up together.
Addison Montgomery
ALSO AWESOME. And amazingly hot. Addison's a world class neonatal surgeon and Derek Shepherd's ex-wife. Addison is difficult and uncompromising though she has shown tender and soft sides from time to time. She's not afraid to tell you she's better than you and she's not afraid to show you that she has the credentials to back it the hell up either. For a brief time, she and Derek tried to reconcile but she knew she couldn't stand up to Meredith in Derek's eyes so they divorced. She became attracted to Alex Karev after punishing him by putting him on the neonatal unit but was both surprised and upset when she found out that he wasn't interested in her. She ends up leaving SGH for LA and her own show wherein she's still awesome.
Denny Duquette
Denny was a heart patient that Izzie met, treated and fell in love with. She risked her career in medicine for him and was devastated when he passed away. He has since appeared in flashbacks to Meredith and, more recently, to Izzie before it was discovered that Izzie had cancer. She hallucinated Denny for several weeks, even going so far as to have sex with him (don't even ask) before she told him to go away.
Erica Hahn
Hahn's a cardiothoracic surgeon and a damn good one. She's focused, gruff, and highly professional to the point of being a workaholic. She's extremely hard on Yang because Yang reminds her of herself when she was a young student. Hahn became romantically involved with Callie Torres at the end of the fourth season and that storyline was praised for its realistic portrayal of the relationship. Of course, Hahn was written out without much warning in the ensuing fifth season, breaking up with Callie and leaving her job at SGH.
Richard Webber
Richard Webber's the current Chief of Surgery at SGH. When Richard was younger, he had an affair with Meredith's mother, Ellis, and continued visiting Ellis throughout Ellis' battle with Alzheimers. After Richard and his wife, Adele, decided to give their marriage a second try, Richard decided he could no longer carry on an emotional affair with Ellis.
Lexie Grey
Lexie is Meredith's half sister, born to Thatcher Grey and his second wife. She's amazingly smart, having been nicknamed the Lexipedia by Alex Karev and Cristina Yang. Due to her relationship with Meredith, she's not afraid to speak her mind with residents more often than most interns.
Owen Hunt
Owen's an army surgeon who specialized in army trauma. He suffers from PTSD, something that manifests itself when he attacks Cristina unintentionally (via choking her while she sleeps). Cristina ends things because she can't fall asleep in his arms. Owen goes into therapy after their breakup to try and work through the PTSD. It's revealed that the ceiling fan in Cristina's apartment is what triggered Owen's PTSD and Cristina takes it down to try and help Owen. The two do eventually get their act together and have since reunited.
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH
It's a complete and utter soap opera. The storylines are out there, some of the characters are boring and sometimes you just wanna hurl something at the television but then it goes and does something compelling or you find a character you ADORE AND LOVE and you just can't turn away. It's not for everyone, I'll say that but it's a good popcorn show and you won't have to think very hard because it's not like the writers are using their brains for some of the stuff they throw out there.
WHERE CAN I SEE IT
The first four seasons are currently out on DVD (with the recent fifth sure to be coming, I'm sure) and the show will be returning for it's sixth season on ABC come fall. It airs Thursdays at at 9PM EST, right in the middle of primetime.