Then, in the final moments of last night's show, a series of subtle little clues start to make sense -- the particular outrage toward the relationship by the chief of staff and other higher-ups, Dr. Shepherd's avoidance of certain phone calls, the deep suspicion that anybody Patrick Dempsey would portray could actually be good -- Dr. Grey is introduced to Mrs. Shepherd, the wife he's been hiding all along.

So everything I just described makes you think, "A hospital really is just a backdrop for a great soap!" And you would be right, except the real glue to even the season finale is the weird little medical cases (a bloated man whose mysterious death prompts an illegal autopsy, a man who is discovered to have an ovary, a secret surgery to remove the chief of staff's brain tumor) and the way the doctors react to them. Besides, the makers of "Grey's Anatomy" can be forgiven if they tried hard in the season finale to amp up their characters' personal drama: They want us to care about them enough to follow them through the exploits of next year. And besides, their foibles, if sensational, aren't out of the realm of possibility, unlike what we've seen happen on "ER."

Last week's season finale of "ER" featured a final goodbye to Dr. Carter, as Wyle finally leaves the show after a long, long journey. And by that, I mean a long journey for us. In recent seasons, John Carter's been the focus of a series of boring, drippy detours that were probably insisted upon by Wyle's people, but that only showcased how many feelings Wyle chooses to emote with the same blank, slack-jawed expression. Wyle seemed personable in the early "ER" years, when Carter was a newbie, fresh-faced and a little dumb and sensitive, prone to tear up when the weight of the world just seemed too much to bear. But a decade later, the annual Get Carter story lines (I've been stabbed! I'm a drug addict! Grammy died! Africa's scary! My hot new pregnant French wife lost our baby!) are enough to reduce anybody to a blank, slack-jawed expression.

"ER" really seems to have been stricken with more than its fair share of actors who outgrow their scrubs. Before he left, George Clooney started landing bigger, more implausible, story lines as did Anthony Edwards, whose Dr. Green evolved from the show's affable Everyman to a victim of a shrewish wife, a brutal beating and then finally brain cancer.

In this, there may be a clear lesson for the creators of "Grey's Anatomy": Give these TV doctors shorter rotations. Meredith Grey and her fellow interns -- like Carter, Green and Ross before them -- will, in a season or two, relax and find their composure. Then we'll be bored with them. So then get rid of them, and bring in a whole new cast of interns -- and save us from the stabbings, the beatings, the brain tumors we'll never care about. Just make sure that at least one of the newbies is named "Grey." And keep the dimpled guy around -- married or not -- for as long as possible.

Recent Stories