How Grey’s Anatomy keeps upping the drama: sex, disasters and more than 140 tumors
During almost two decades on air, writers of hit TV show Grey’s Anatomy have had to weave a seemingly endless stream of medical cases into the complicated, sexy, often tragic lives of its characters.
Dr Meredith Grey has nearly died seven times. The hospital where she works has faced a bomb, an earthquake, shootings and a flood. Patients and staff in her hospital have been diagnosed with more than 140 tumours.
During almost two decades on air, writers of hit TV show Grey’s Anatomy have had to weave a seemingly endless stream of medical cases into the complicated, sexy, often tragic lives of its characters.
The drama has been a darling of broadcast TV and the streaming eras, with roughly 300 hours of content. While bingeable comfort watches such as Friends and Seinfeld ended long ago, Grey’s Anatomy continues to air new episodes, and entered its 21st season on September 26.
“Insane medical cases and patients” have been the constant, says showrunner Meg Marinis, who joined the writing staff as an assistant in 2006.
White boards line the walls of a Los Angeles bungalow where about a dozen writers, two writers’ assistants, a researcher and three doctors gather on a studio lot to map out how best to combine blood and scalpels with romantic encounters and friendship.
Grey’s Anatomy made its debut in 2005, chronicling the exploits of ultra-competitive surgical interns at a fictional Seattle hospital. The show opens after a one-night stand between Grey and a stranger she met at the bar who turns out to be a married brain surgeon at her new place of work.
Since then, writers have faced a constant challenge of how to subject characters to just the right amount of heartache, professional hurdles and loss.
Grey’s Anatomy has appeared on ratings firm Nielsen’s weekly list of the 10 most-watched streaming shows 122 times since 2020, one of only four shows to hit triple digits.
“We’re going to have blood. We’re going to have scary talk about people dying and we’re Grey’s Anatomy so there’s going to be sex,” Marinis says.
Characters elope, lose friends, revive crashing patients, make snap judgments, hook up in supply closets and dance it out in break rooms. Patients bleed, seize, code and die – sometimes when they appear to be on the road to recovery.
When writers have an idea for a new twist for a character, they “play the ‘make it worse, make it sadder’ game’,” Marinis says.
“Sometimes we’re like, ‘why would you say that?! That’s horrible! You’re a monster’. We’re all trying to one up each other.”
More recently, writers have had to adapt to star Ellen Pompeo’s decision to reduce the number of episodes in which she appears.
Writers spend about a month writing each episode, followed by three weeks of production and two weeks of edits. A document called the “Grey’s Anatomy Bible” keeps track of all the plot lines, voice-overs, medical cases and themes covered.
They try to strike a balance in keeping the show dramatic without wreaking havoc for characters. A main character collapsed in the operating room at the end of the 19th season, for example, so the writers opted for emotional turmoil at the end of the next season. “We try not to hurt or make our characters sick too much,” Marinis says. “It’s an easy well to go to because that’s instant shock and drama when one character is at risk of dying, but we try not to do it too often.”
Streaming platforms have ushered in a younger fan base, some of whom weren’t alive when the show first aired on ABC. (Episodes debut on America’s ABC network and are available on Hulu in the US the next day); past seasons are accessible on Netflix and Hulu. Across all of Disney’s streaming services globally, Grey’s Anatomy has garnered 3.6 billion hours of viewing.
Characters’ phrases, from “seriously” to “pick me, choose me, love me” and McDreamy, have been cemented into pop culture with memes of famous scenes getting new lives on social media platforms.
Some ideas for patient conditions – such as one early on in which doctors save a teenager stuck in a block of cement – come directly from Shonda Rhimes, the show’s creator, known for other addictive fare such as Bridgerton, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. To keep the medicine on the show fresh, the drama has run a fellowship for surgical residents since 2013: residents from across the country can apply to work in the Grey’s Anatomy writing room and receive credit for their surgical residency by consulting on the show.
“People find new ways to injure themselves every day,” Marinis says.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sarah Krouse contributed to this article.
