I love Grey’s anatomy. I love musicals. And I’ve liked the few TV show musical episodes that have popped up here and there. The Buffy the Vampire musical episode was wonderful (except for the fact that Joss insisted on allowing all the cast members to sing, even the ones who couldn’t). It had logic, it had theme, it had fun. The excuse? A demon cast a spell over the town so that everybody sang instead of talked. The result? A Buffy episode you could dance to.
The Scrubs musical episode enlisted the talent that gave us Avenue Q, right down to one of the stars of the show. The excuse? A patient who passed out in the park and woke up to hear everybody bursting into song. Every time that patient came into contact with the staff, songs occurred. When she woke up in the end of the episode after being operated on, the music was gone—except for the humming she did to herself to end the show.
This week, Grey’s Anatomy tried it. And created the worst-ever episode of the entire series. They jumped that shark, all right. Sara Ramirez has a wonderful voice. (She’s a Tony winner.) So did many of the other cast members. I love the song “Chasing Cars,” and I liked a couple of the other songs. But the show was boring, predictable, and, well, stupid. It managed to take what should have been a moving, unique experience and turn it into “Hey! Glee’s getting awesome ratings, let’s try to copy what they do!”
The logic was inconsistent. They tried to have the gravely-injured Callie be the center of the songs with an out-of-body experience. Doctors sang as they worked to save her life. (Enter: The Fray’s “How to Save a Life.” And yet, singing doctors left the operating room and continued to sing while they walked through the hospital to comfort grieving doctors. Why even pretend that you have logic behind the songs when you throw it away the first chance you get? And we’re back to, “Hey! Glee’s getting awesome ratings, let’s try to copy what they do!”
The other side of the coin: Most of the songs sucked. I’m not alone in that review. Let’s see: Fail. Fail. Fail. Super Fail.
The doctors sing to Callie as she’s being wheeled to surgery. It’s unclear if she was crying from the pain or the sound of their voices, which were equally painful.
Yeah, except they’re not crying in pain. The ratings were through the roof, and the songs are making iTunes stars out of the Grey’s Anatomy cast. But I promise you this: If there’s a second musical episode, I’m so not there.
Funny use of “jumped the shark,” then. Doesn’t that usually indicate a dud?
Go ahead and hate me, but I liked it. And Kevin McKidd (Owen Hunt) has an AMAZING voice.
And let’s not forget the Xena musical episode — another brilliant one, almost as good as Buffy’s.
Er, “The Bitter Suite,” NOT “Lyre Lyre Hearts On Fire,” but the hard-rock “Always Something There To Remind Me” was an inspired interpretation.
J.
Russ, “jumping the shark” indicates that the show has pretty much lost all of the originality that made you like it, not that its ratings have tanked. It’s based on the immortal Happy Days episode which saw Fonzie jump over a shark tank on his motorcycle. (It was a really, really, REALLY bad episode.) And, as we can see by everyday television fare, ratings are not necessarily an indicator of excellence. (Jersey Shore comes immediately to mind. Anything with a Kardashian, too.)
Jay, I don’t hate you. I just think we have different taste, that’s all. I liked Kevin McKidd’s voice.
Wow, that’s right. I forgot the Xena musical episode. That was another one that used music to move the story along wonderfully.
I think Fonzie was on waterskis… waterskis, trunk, life vest, and leather jacket.
But yeah, Buffy and Xena did it great. Grey’s… not great, but I gave it a passing grade. Maybe it was the lack of original music?
J.
I have the episode recorded on my PC, and I rewatch it just to hear McKidd sing. And I don’t do that for male singers. I’m not even that fond of his character.
J.
I hate Grey’s Anatomy. The idea of a singing episode was even less appealing than usual.
The funny thing about jumping the shark though, is, that’s it’s usually a reference to a TV show turning to gimmicks to keep fans interested. (I think that ER had to be the world champion for jumping sharks.) But Fonzie jumped the shark pretty early in the history of Happy Days.
Right, TempoMan, it was waterskis. I forgot he was wearing swim trunks and a black leather jacket. Wow, that makes it even worse.
I think Grey’s could have done it well with unoriginal music, if the writing had been any good. And if the song choices had been better. It really felt pretty stupid overall.
No, it was the fifth season. And here’s the video.
I stopped watching ER after it got boring and stupid. I’ve been worried since last season that Grey’s was at the ER stage. I think I may not be watching it next season.
Jumping the Shark was in the 5th of 11 seasons. I should have been clearer. I would have expected something like that later in the series.
But then I had also thought that Happy Days’ popularity was still growing. Season 6 was its last top 10 in ratings. I guess they saw some weakness already in season 5.