20 seasons of Grey's Anatomy: A newbie and veteran fan talk through the show's legacy

Grey’s Anatomy kicked off its landmark 20th season on March 14. That makes Shonda Rhimes’ flagship show the longest-running medical drama in television history, an achievement it earned for good reason. Through all the casting changes, traumatic season finales, behind-the-scenes drama, and onscreen heartbreak, viewers continually show up for Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and her found family at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (neé Seattle Grace).

But why? A.V. Club staff writers Mary Kate Carr (a recent convert) and Saloni Gajjar (a longtime fan) are here to answer that question, reflecting on being Grey’s aficionados, the winding journey of 20 exciting, emotional, occasionally disappointing but always dramatic seasons of TV, and why they keep coming back for more.

Mary Kate Carr: As a TV lover, I’ve always been aware of Grey’s Anatomy—you’d have to live under a rock not to be. And I enjoyed Shondaland shows like Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder when they aired. I think I avoided getting into it because I had some preconceived notions of medical dramas, and it was also such a behemoth that I never even thought about diving in.

Eventually, I came to it in the most 2020s way possible: I was sick with COVID last fall, and my TikTok algorithm kept feeding me dramatic clips out of context from different seasons. I realized I was watching almost full episodes in TikTok-sized bites, and I thought, “Why am I not just watching the actual show?” I powered through ten seasons of the series at a frankly alarming rate, and now I’m on season 16 and rushing to catch up. I’d love to hear the story of your Grey’s journey, Saloni.

Saloni Gajjar: I should’ve noted the date and time I first started watching Grey’s Anatomy because that’s history. I’ve been watching the show for several years now, pretty much since it began. I wasn’t a regular watcher back then, though by the time season five or so rolled around, I was caught up and into it. It’s been a weekly journey for me ever since. And once you’ve stuck with Grey’s through all the bombs, ferry accidents, “pick me, choose me, love me,” and ghost sex, you really can’t stop. They sucked me right in, and I will never, ever give up, no matter how many times people ask me, “Is that still on?”

MKC: That brings me back to the preconceived notions about medical dramas. I probably had it in my head that Grey’s was ridiculous, soapy, over the top, and therefore not as good. But, as you know, lately I’ve come around to those things being what’s great and special about television as a medium, and it’s what makes Grey’s such a blast. I think if anyone gave it an earnest shot, they’d get sucked in because there’s something for everybody: romance, friendship, drama, betrayal, mystery, and lots of blood and guts. There’s a huge cast that is largely stellar (at least in the first half of its run) and a strong emotional core. All those bombshell (no pun intended) episode moments you mentioned are what suck you in and keep you coming back for more.

With that said, do you have a favorite era or season? I binged the first several so quickly that they kind of blur together, but it’s damn remarkable that the first ten seasons all generally operate at a high level. Just when you think they don’t have the magic anymore, boom, there’s a plane crash, or our heroes own the hospital and it’s rejuvenated the show in an entirely new way. (We can circle back on them forgetting Meredith owns the hospital most of the time in recent years.)

Still, the very best of Grey’s has to be with the original set of interns. As much as they could all get on my nerves (I’m a George hater!) they had a platonic chemistry that was great to watch. They supported each other, and they were also competitive, which drops off in later seasons as the original cast gets older. And early on, Meredith and Derek have a romantic chemistry that’s almost unmatched on television.

SG: Early Grey’s alsoholds a special place in my heart, specifically seasons one to six. It’s a singular phenomenon. No one anticipated how wildly addictive this network medical drama was about to get. (Sorry to ER and House, but Grey’s is a different beast altogether.) Yes, it’s soapy and often on-the-nose, but the writing and mapping of storylines were beautiful. The timing of Addison’s arrival, the organic friendship between Meredith and Cristina (“you’re my person” was the first time I got teary while watching the show and it certainly wasn’t the last), Bailey’s dynamic with her interns, the reveal of Meredith’s history with Richard and Seattle Grace itself, Lexie joining as a doctor… the build-up to all this drama was insane. Seasons five and six are precious also because of Lexie and Mark Sloan (RIP!), Izzie and George leaving, the school shooting...I can go on about how each storyline felt riveting in its own way.

Even if no one has the patience to watch 20 seasons, watching from episode one to the hospital shooting in the sixth season finale is good. It’s Grey’s at its peak. I don’t want to discount the quality of later seasons—there are highs and lows there—but Grey’s didn’t always know how to handle its many (too many!) characters, jumbled-up romances, and medical cases in coherent threads as it went on. Barely any relationship or marriage survives here, but I’m invested in most of them anyway. After seeing what they pulled off with Meredith and Derek, Lexie and Mark, Callie and Arizona, Alex and Jo, etc., I’m always waiting for the next big romance anyway. So even if I have to tolerate the existence of Owen Hunt and Teddy Altman, I’ll persevere.

MKC: The cast has changed a lot over the years, but the loss of Sandra Oh and, not too long after, Patrick Dempsey marked a huge shift. But also, behind the scenes, Shonda Rhimes was stepping away to focus on other projects, and that can be felt too. And you know what I’m going to say next: Watching the show with full knowledge of Elisabeth Finch, the writer who lied about having cancer, is a fascinating experiment.

It’s one of the big differences between yours and my perspective on the show, because I had devoured the Finche exposé long before ever watching an episode, and I feel like her lies are present in the writing. Shonda shows all have a grandiose, preachy, monologue style to them—I’m not knocking that, it’s juicy and appealing, and Scandal elevated it to an art form—but the Finch era is tinged with this self-righteousness. The weird levels to writing a fictional version of her rare cancer while faking having the rare cancer are so evident when you watch it knowing that. I think all the time about how the Vanity Fair article about her described Finch as a “room hog” who frequently took up all the oxygen to talk about her made-up dramas because her fingerprints are all over the episodes about heavier topics like terminal cancer, rape, and abuse. I think it’s something the show suffers from in the later seasons, and it’s not fair to pin it all on one person, but it seems like there’s an obvious throughline.

That said, the handling of politics in the later seasons overall is tricky. In the first half of the show, they might touch on world events or ripped-from-the-headlines stuff, but it stayed pretty personal. When Grey’s tries to preach, it’s well-meaning but it falls flat for me. The best parts of the later seasons are when they refocus on the interpersonal stuff. It’s nowhere near as good as the original five interns, but rebranding the show as the Meredith/Amelia/Maggie sister show was the best possible way forward. Yeah, those ladies are annoying as hell sometimes, but they’re family—and that’s exactly how I feel about Meredith’s intern class too.

SG: I’d say even before Sandra and Patrick left, the show started to get cyclical. It’s to be expected in a ninth season, of course, but with Eric Dane and Chyler Leigh gone, it felt like part of the show’s emotional core was lacking. It’s easy to understand why someone like Sandra wanted to get out of the hallowed Seattle Grace halls. And it’s not like her exit helped the quality.

As much as I appreciate Grey’s surviving and introducing new characters almost every season, no one has been particularly memorable for me besides Jo—and even that took a while. Plus, we lost Justin Chambers, Jessica Capshaw, Sarah Drew, and Sara Ramirez. It got chaotic. I don’t think then-showrunner Krista Vernoff ever figured out how to handle evolving it at this stage. It’s hard to replace beloved characters with those who feel like a pale imitation, and Vernoff didn’t seem like she tried very hard. That’s why the Amelia/Maggie sisterhood feels forced to me. I’m not the biggest fan of it, to be honest.

Despite the cast turnover, which is probably essential for a show to make it to the 20th season, I have to say it’s always intriguing when someone new joins. You never know what to expect. I didn’t think Arizona’s arrival in season five would impact the show the way it did, so who knows what Natalie Morales joining in season 20 leads to?

As for the storylines themselves, they all blur for me between seasons 11 and 16. Except for a few standout moments, I could not tell you what happened. You’re just meant to ride the wave. However, reading that Finch reveal was so crushing and shocking. I was tempted to go back and watch her episodes with this new information. I didn’t have it in me, but I agree with your takeaway on how preachy and inauthentic it all seems.

I will defend season 17, a.k.a the COVID-19 season. As a medical drama, they couldn’t ignore the pandemic. So they weaved it in quite wonderfully, in my opinion, by bringing familiar faces like Derek, George, Mark, and Lexie back into the fold. For viewers stuck at home and suffering through the real world, it felt like a much-needed, joyful moment of respite. It was comfort TV at its best. So what if it came at the cost of Meredith being in a coma for most of the season? At least we finally got a MerDer beach wedding (Post-it, you’ll always be special, too).

MKC: I think that brings us to an important question. What makes fans keep coming back? One of our friends, Nora, asked if I would keep watching after Derek died. For me, it was a no-brainer. I started Grey’s in the first place because I was craving something to sink my teeth into, something traditionally television, as opposed to the glut of one-season, eight-hour-and-a-half-long-episode prestige series that are around nowadays. I’m in a place where I can appreciate that Grey’s is the primetime soap of our era. Very literally, they do not make ’em like that anymore, and it’s a miracle it has endured to the level it has for 20 seasons.

And because it’s so enduring and is a cultural phenomenon, it’s been fun to share with other people. I have so much enjoyed being able to text you, as a longtime viewer who has seen it all already, when something crazy happens, or text my friend whom I cajoled into starting the show around the same time I did so that we can freak out about our binge watch at the same time. And when I say “I recently started Grey’s,” almost everyone I’ve talked to about it has some experience or knows it one way or another. Few television shows nowadays can claim the status of a universal touchstone like that, which is special and part of what makes it so fun to keep watching. Whether you started it back in 2005 or 2023, we’ve all invested hours of our lives in these characters and this hospital. Like you said, it’s a huge comfort TV show.

SG: Most people I know did stop watching when Derek died. Maybe it felt like a point of no return for Greys in 2015, so I understand why Nora asked you. Not me. I wept when Mer tells him “You go,” and at its usual hour the next Thursday, I tuned in to see how the hell she was going to break the news to everyone else. That’s what happens when you completely immerse yourself in a TV show. I’m their family member now; they just don’t know it. It’s why I can’t listen to “Chasing Cars” or “How To Save A Life” in public anymore. I keep coming back because I’ve spent far too much time in their fictional lives, and I need to know what happens next.

As for why the viewership is still so high, it’s a real testament to Grey’s fanbase. The writing team knows how to keep fanning the flames of its established history. A regular episode will become instantly better if someone mentions Cristina in passing, old patients like Katie Bryce show up again, or Amelia reminisces about Derek as she does in the season 20 premiere. Every time a batch of five interns is introduced, we wonder if they’ll live up to the MAGIC fame. Those little nudges to the past while charting a new path keeps Grey’s somewhat fresh. And as you said, it’s nice to rely on 22-episode seasons to keep us company week-to-week instead of eight episodes you can watch in one sitting. At this point, if a TV show crosses six seasons, it’s a huge deal. And here we have Grey’s Anatomy at 20. I’ll take that as a personal win.