grey’s: the timeline that wasn’t.
see, they're confused, too // abc promotional photo
TV Guide recently reported that Grey’s Anatomy will take one episode this winter to show Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s with the team:
Grey’s Anatomy will bid adieu to 2009 later this season when the Seattle Grace staff celebrates Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s—all in one very special installment. That’s a lot of turkey! Not to mention an extra helping of high emotion. “We’re pretty excited,” show creator Shonda Rhimes tells me. “We’ll be watching time pass as we take the audience into the new year.”
This seems like as good a time as any to question the timeline of this show–or, rather, the lack thereof. Back in the early days, their loose relationship with time just seemed silly. It took the core cast three seasons to complete their intern year; just think about how crazy the Derek/Meredith roller coaster was that from hooking up to Addison’s arrival to sexing at the hospital prom to Meredith drowning herself to their breakup at Burktina’s near-wedding was all supposed to be ONE YEAR.
Please.
Well, and then Lexie arrived. She’s supposed to be much younger than Meredith, but she’s only technically one year behind her. Has this ever been explained? Did Lexie skip a bunch of grades? Did Meredith take time off?
This show just has such a loosy goosy approach to time. It’s like the writers decide they want to do a wintery storyline, so they make it winter. Two weeks later, it’s a kid who almost drowned in a swimming pool. Then, HEY, freak fall icicle impales Cristina! It’s lazy and annoying.
Anyway, all of this is to say that while holiday episodes of anything are almost always appreciated, Grey’s might want to back off from trying to attach their episodes to any kind of real timeline–it’s not working. And while at the end of the day, the time part doesn’t really matter to the overall story of Grey’s Anatomy, it does matter to me a little bit, and I think it’s careless that it doesn’t matter to the writers.
