Grey's Anatomy

Okay, I admit it. I like Grey's Anatomy. Critics complain that it's sometimes exasperating, too soap-opera-ish, too unrealistic. But what I like, and I realized it last night, is the slow process by which characters grow and learn to accept each other. This part of the show is realistic. A self-centered, obnoxious person in real life doesn't suddenly become lovable and understanding. He or she may soften and become less rigid as time goes by, but there's always the seed of what they were at their core.

Last night, Meredith, the somewhat damaged, fragile title character who has a half-sister, Lexie, whom she didn't even know about for years, last night told Lexie, "You're my sister. You're in my wedding (party)." It took about two TV seasons for her to come around from resenting, hating and ignoring this woman for having their father around all the years she was growing up (he had left Meredith and her mother when she was young and started a whole new family) to actually bonding with her as a sister. It was a true Kodak moment. (For those too young to know what this is, look it up.)

I realize, as I reread the previous paragraphs, that it sounds like a muddled, silly soap opera. And I suppose it is. But it's also frequently funny, making me laugh at the same time I'm moved by a tragic turn of events. The nature of a dramatic TV show based on characters more than situations is such that those characters will go through more, and bigger, changes than regular people. It almost unavoidable over multiple seasons. Most of us don't have interesting enough lives to adapt into a year-after-year TV show. But the enjoyable thing in a series is when those little a-ha or uplifting moments occur when you don't expect them. In an episode in which two friends of 20 years were feuding, a doctor held a dying six-year-old in her arms for hours while the father was off trying to raise money for a hopeless shot at a cure instead of being with his child, a father cut off a trust fund for his daughter because she announced she was gay--and happy, and a doctor with a 5% chance of beating terminal cancer plunged into the depths of chemo therapy, my favorite moment was when a very flawed woman accepted her sister as if it had always been thus. A simple moment topped all the drama.

Lest I seem too much of a softie, however, I also like The Office and 30 Rock, two shows that largely revel in the absence of true, heartfelt emotions.