Grey’s Anatomy Musical Episode — It Didn’t Work

I just watched this much talked about Grey’s Anatomy episode, and I really wanted to like it — I promise I did. Unfortunately, it simply didn’t work. The plot surrounded Dr. Callie Torres, who was near death following a car accident. In the process of trying to save her, just about every doctor breaks into song, which is loosely justified by Callie’s hallucinations. There’s a few problems with this. First, in order to justify awkwardly singing in the middle of a hospital operation, each song must take place in Callie’s presence, otherwise it’s not a hallucination, and it’s instead just a crazy doctor that should be fired for singing on the job. Second, the song choices should have been somewhat thematic. It just doesn’t make sense to sing Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and Breathe by Anna Nalick. It felt too random, as if they picked the songs out of a very large hat. I realize that Shonda Rimes has some very talented cast members whose voice she wanted to feature in her show. But if I were advising her, I’d tell her to take a note from Ally McBeal instead of Glee, and have the actors randomly sing at a bar after work instead. It would have made much more sense that way. Watch a clip of last Thursday’s episode below.