Commentary

A Touch Of 'Grey's': ABC Medical Drama Returns For Season 21

How can we describe “Grey’s Anatomy?” Venerable? The Methuselah of medicine? The “Gunsmoke” of hospital dramas?

This ABC series -- the first triumphant creation of showrunner Shonda Rhimes -- starts its 21st season on Thursday.

Think of it. “Grey’s Anatomy” premiered just two months after the launch of YouTube and a year before Twitter.

Also consider this: With its 21 seasons, it surpasses “Gunsmoke,” which ran for 20. For many years, “Gunsmoke” was TV’s reigning champion of longest-running dramas.*

“Grey’s” is TV’s longest-running prime-time medical drama, but “General Hospital” is the longest-running medical drama, period -- 61 years, and also on ABC.

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Daytime soaps are not quite the same as prime-time ones, but “Grey’s” definitely fits into the latter category.

Through the years, devoted fans have followed the lives and loves of Meredith Grey -- played by the star of the show, Ellen Pompeo -- and so many other characters who are too numerous to name. 

When the show premiered, Pompeo was 35. Now she is 54 and one of the world’s highest-paid actors, according to Wikipedia.

She is one of only three cast members who have hung in there from the first season. The other two are James Pickens Jr., now 69, who plays Dr. Richard Webber, and Chandra Wilson, 55, who plays Dr. Miranda Bailey.

Dozens of others have come and gone. Some, such as Sandra Oh, advanced in their careers. Oh went on to star in “Killing Eve.”

In the years since “Grey’s Anatomy” premiered, the television world morphed into something completely different, but “Grey’s” stayed pretty much the same -- a prime-time soap in the traditional mold of similar shows going back decades.

The new season begins with the fallout from the tumult that concluded the show’s 20th season last May.

Back then, Meredith clashed with the owner and namesake of the Catherine Fox Foundation -- played by Debbie Allen -- which runs the hospital.

The two clashed over Meredith’s Alzheimer’s research and when the dust cleared, Meredith had resigned and the jobs of other staff members were in peril.

In the 21st season premiere Thursday night, Meredith is still in the office but looking at the exits. But then, events take a surprising turn. ’Nuff said! 

*Other dramas are ahead of “Grey’s” on the all-time list: “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” 25 seasons; “Law & Order,” 23 seasons; and “NCIS,” 21 seasons.
Fun fact:
Gray’s Anatomy, the famed 19th-century reference book by Henry Gray, was first published in London in 1858.

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