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.

Wow! It takes alot for me to really like a television show these days. It seems like anymore everything is "Reality TV" and I am sick of watching most shows these days. Then along comes Grey's Anatomy and BOOM! I am TOTALLY sucked in.

The first season introduces the characters of Meredith Grey, the main character and focus of the show, who is an intern at Seattle Grace Hospital. It starts with her first day and developes quickly as she meets her soon to be room mates, Izzy & George. You then meet the rest of the cast who endear you to them at a very rapid pace. Then along comes McDreamy.... you do not want to miss how Meredith meets him, and just how did he get that nickname????

I was drawn so wholly into this show in the first season that I (for the first time EVER!) actually made time to watch it weekly. I even bought the whole season on DVD and watched it again, afterall, there are many bonus scenes not seen on TV.

The show may seem like just another "ER" but the lives and relationships and even overall medical situations make it very hard to resist. So much so that you'll find yourself buying season 2 shortly after watching season 1. It's THAT GOOD! Better than ER in my opinion.

Meredith Grey's a woman medical intern amongst a host of others. However her mother was a top surgeon who is now living in a nursing home with Alzheimers--a mother who can recall her scrub nurse but not her husband or daughter. Meredith began dating a man before she met him in the Seattle Grace Hospital as a key brain and spinal surgeon who is a candidate for Chief of surgery. Episode after episode one of the leading tensions in the series is between Grey and this boss she dated before knowing his position at the hospital.

It's obvious she's crazy for him but she's very aware of the serious complications of dating one of her surgical team bosses.

The other tension is between the teaching head intern and the new crew. She's going to test them in every way imaginable and make their lives hardly their own any more.

The main competition between the surgical interns is to be asked by one of the surgeons to scrub for surgery to assist them. So once the head intern catches Grey and her surgical boss in a car having sex, she watches how he seems to favor her for surgeries then lashes out with threats at both of them, even though the surgeon is her boss too!

Meredith offers what used to be her mother's home to several of the other surgical interns. Shortly after they too learn she's having a sexual relationship with one of their bosses. It makes for another degree of tension between roomate interns.

One posed for an underwear centerfold to pay for medical school and the men interns soon find the photos. Here comes another tension between them.

Another man intern gets syphilis and everyone finds out. They taunt him mercilessly.

Everyone has got secrets but perhaps the best kept one is between intern Christine and the other candidate for Chief of surgery. They've been having a secret sexual relationship and now Christine is pregnant and planning to keep it secret by having an abortion.

At the conclusion of season one, Meredith is confronted, as if a slut, in the lobby of the hospital as she and her lover boss are about to leave together, by a woman who calls herself his wife. That's the last scene of the season.

I don't like bloody gory hospital flix like "Nip and Yuck," at all! I watched ER exactly once and disliked it for being too sappy and soapy with very boring characters.

Grey's Anatomy has quite exciting medical cases, great tensions between the characters, lots of on point intellectual script, and very good acting. I'm definitely getting the DVD of season 2.

Did you like ER when it first came on? So did I and when the cast started to leave, so did I. It wasn't until I saw a season 2 episode of Grey's Anatomy that I returned to the hospital drama. I had given up on hospital dramas.

Grey's cast is superb! Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey, intern) and Patrick Dempsey (Derek Shepard a.k.a. Dr. McDreamy, Attending) have great chemistry. That's not to say that the rest of the cast doesn't contribute, but in Grey's season 1 these are the characters that you're really watching. The relationship between Derek and Meredith is interesting to say the least. I'm glad I invested in season 1 to see how it developed.

This show focuses a lot of time on character development, which is time well spent. We really get a chance to get to know the interns of Seattle Grace Hospital. The show takes us through their day and their off-the-clock lives. Three of the sugical interns, Meredith, Izzie and George, live together, creating an interesting situation as George has a huge crush on Meredith who is "seeing" Dr. McDreamy.

This is an excellent drama. I highly recommend it to anyone who misses the early years of ER.

My girlfriend's favorite show, is, of course, the new hit drama, Grey's Anatomy. Ellen Pompeo plays Meredith Grey, who is a surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital in Seattle, Washington. While the show is about doctors/surgeons operating on patients in a hospital, their lives are also affected by everyday drama such as relationships between doctors and other doctors, doctors and patients, overprotective parents, fear, loneliness, love, and all that good stuff.

While I did buy this DVD for her originally, after watching several episodes of the second season last Winter, I must confess that I'm also a fan of the series. The first season is no exception. You really sympathize with each character that comes into play, as the acting on all sides is really phenomenal. The actors on this show have all had previous acting experience. Sandra Oh plays the character
Christina Yang, and some of you may remember seeing her in the movie "Sideways" a few years ago. She has played bit parts in several other movies. If you IMDB the names of the other actors, like Patrick Dempsey, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, more proof is shown.

My girlfriend loved her graduation present, and we've watched each episode several times together. Not to mention, the value of this product was outstanding. Considering the show is up for several Emmys currently, $16.00 was a price that no store could beat. I highly recommend this product to anyone looking for a riveting television drama.