Fifty Shades of Grey's

The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution allows all citizens the freedom of religion. Some are Christian, some are Jewish, others are Buddhist or athiest. Me? If you had polled me in 2007, I would have checked the box next to Grey's Anatomy.

Only a few TV shows have affected me quite as much as this one. During freshmen year of college, I would spend all week counting down impatiently until Grey's. Then Thursday night would arrive at last. My friends and I would convene in a dorm room, lock the door to avoid disruption, and watch with bated breath for 60 minutes. Sad, I know. But a season or two later, a writers' strike in L.A. brought all scripted shows to a halt and my interest tapered off. "I do have a life, ya know," I probably told myself. (Lies.)

Fast forward five years and thanks to Netflix, I'm officially re-addicted. I've fallen off the wagon on the road to recovery. I wouldn't go so far as to call Seattle Grace Hospital my house of worship anymore, but I would call watching it a damn good use of my free time and Kindle Fire.

Despite its incredible writers and powerful acting, I can't help but see it from a new perspective this time around. There are a certain number of elements necessary to make this network drama the ratings powerhouse it has become:

The Most Attractive Doctors in All of Washington State

I would definitely stage a life-threatening illness just to be rolled into that emergency room. They've got sex appeal dripping from their IVs. Everything about that hospital is distractingly gorgeous. The state-of-the-art facility is fine, I suppose, but it pales in comparison to the fleet of perfectly groomed physicians making a runway out of its halls. First of all, those scrubs are far from scrubby. They're tailored to a tee. And the customized scrub caps that only partially cover their heads, serving little to no purpose in the OR? Hygiene can take a backseat in this case; McDreamy's famous brunette locks need room to breathe. On second thought, maybe I'll avoid this hospital in case of emergency. If these doctors caught their flawless reflection in a scalpel, they might be too distracted to operate properly. That is if they aren't late to their own surgeries because they're doing each other in the supply closet.

Another Scene, Another Non Sequitur

There's a certain rhythm to dialogue in dramatic scenes. You may have never noticed - but you probably have - that it's quite different than the way we talk in real conversation. One character will be speaking and their scene partner will interrupt with a word or phrase that they've seemingly just pulled out of nowhere. It's as if they're unsure of an appropriate response, so they flip through a dictionary and blurt out the first word they see. Or, at best, they're playing a game of Free Association. It happens all the time.

Meredith: Izzy, can you take these blood samples upstairs for me?
Izzy: Pancakes.
Meredith: ....What?
Izzy: When I was a little girl, I would wake up and the smell of fresh pancakes would be floating up the stairs. Before I even got out of bed, I knew who was cooking breakfast. See, 'cause if it was blueberry, it was Mom, but if it was chocolate chip, it had to be Dad. The only trick was if bacon was cooking too... then I could never tell who -
*Christina passes by*
Meredith: Christina! I've got to get to surgery... can you run these samples to the lab?
Christina: Sophie.
Meredith: I'm Meredith.
Christina: No, Sophie was my black lab growing up. She had to be put down and 'ya know, I don't think I ever got over it.....

Monologues Shakespeare Would Be Proud Of

I don't remember the last time I opened my mouth and a sentence flowed seamlessly out of my mouth exactly how I'd imagined it. Within the walls of Seattle Grace, however, long, perfectly-timed, artfully-worded monologues are commonplace. And not once is it the appropriate time or place:

• a critically ill patient using up valuable time to ramble on about what they were doing when the train hit them or their heart stopped for a minute
• a couple of doctors who should be off saving lives, but are instead spouting spiteful, passive-aggressive comments at each other ( usually in patients' rooms or down otherwise quiet corridors )

As an afterword, I do feel obligated to declare that of all the Grey's Anatomy men, I would pick Denny Duquette. He's perfect (minus the enlarged heart). Oh, I just got another look at Drs. Shephard, Sloane, Karev and Avery. Never mind... it's too hard to choose. Especially because they're fictional.