Grey's Anatomy - Season 1 (DVD, 2006, 2-Disc Set)

The series focuses on five interns as they survive their first year at the hospital, and find a balance between their careers and the rest of their life outside of medicine. The show has a huge cast including Golden Globe winner Sandra Oh, Patrick Dempsey, Ellen Pompeo, Katherine Heigl, T. R. Knight, James Pickens Jr., Chandra Wilson, Isaiah Washington, and Justin Chambers.

The series’ main character and narrator is Meredith Grey – the daughter of a world famous surgeon. She is the show’s center and the focus of the first nine episodes. In addition to dealing with the struggles of being an intern, Meredith also has to juggle the secret that her mother is dealing with Alzheimer’s disease, and that Meredith has struck up a dangerous affair with Derek Shepherd – a surgeon at the hospital and her boss in the intern program.

The show could easily let Meredith be the only character worth developing, but instead the writers make Grey’s Anatomy a truly ensemble cast show. They achieve this by creating several other characters worth watching and caring about. They include Izzie Stevens – the model turned doctor; George O’Malley – the insecure doctor with the heart of gold; Cristina – the highly competitive and driven intern; and Alex Karev – the intern we all love to hate.

Even if they are fairly cliché, the show’s other doctors are also entertaining. They include Shepherd – the flirty surgeon full of charm and a habit for breaking the rules; Preston Burke – the arrogant and confident surgeon who believes he is always right and that interns are basically there for him to punish; and Miranda Bailey – the senior resident, nicknamed “The Nazi” who manages to make the group of interns’ lives hell. Overseeing the whole mess, Dr. Richard Webber balances the role of chief of surgery with an understanding of what the interns are going through and a no-nonsense attitude required of all those under him.

The series’ pilot sets up most of the season’s future episodes nicely by quickly introducing the characters and some of the coming plot elements - such as the “forbidden” love between Dempsey and Pompeo. It also lets you know that although you have seen the formula before - Grey’s Anatomy is still worth watching.

While some of the characters are not that original (some could have been lifted from the set of E.R.), all of the actors do a great job of giving their roles enough personality, quirks, and interesting characteristics to make them stand out.

If the series has any faults, it is in the way it follows formulas established by other hit medical series (such as E.R. or Chicago Hope), and some of the later episodes in the set seem a bit repetitive. The series makes sure to blend some light comedy, a little bit of romance, and some kind of life lesson for Grey to learn in just about every episode. At times, the narration makes it feel a little like Doogie Howser, M.D. for adults.

None of these little problems take away from the brilliant performances of much of the series’ cast or some of the moments of originality added to episodes by the writers. The faults also don’t keep the show from being extremely enjoyable and addicting.