ABC Runs Grey's Anatomy's Story Gimmick To The Ground

Published Oct 16, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT Antonella Gugliersi (she/them) has been a feature writer for Screen Rant since 2021. While studying for her bachelor’s in Economics & Management, they started writing about movies and TV shows for Turin-based The Unconventional Mag. After a brief internship at TPI, she decided she wanted to pursue journalism and graduated with a degree in International Journalism from Brunel University. Warning! SPOILERS ahead for Grey’s Anatomy season 23, episode 1.The plane collision in Grey’s Anatomy season 23’s premiere stirred chaos at Grey Sloan Memorial, but it also made the medical drama’s biggest problem more evident. Following a season 22 finale that focused less on those remaining at Grey Sloan to showcase Owen and Teddy’s exit storylines, Grey’s Anatomy season 23 begins a new season with a disaster involving planes once again, albeit without endangering its doctors. Grey’s Anatomy season 23’s trailer already teased that Grey Sloan Memorial would have to weather the crisis while also inaugurating the hospital’s new VIP floor. Grey’s Anatomy season 23, episode 1 nevertheless showed that things were much worse than what the trailer hinted at, as the episode revealed that Grey Sloan Memorial’s new chief of surgery would be Seth Norton, CEO and founder of Olympic Regent Health. This frames the opening of Grey Sloan’s VIP floor as only the first step of many that can completely change Grey Sloan Memorial as it became known on Grey’s Anatomy over the years. Despite the earth-shattering developments it set up, Grey’s Anatomy season 23’s premiere felt the need to include a brand-new disaster. The plane collision indubitably made emotional storylines possible, as the focus on Larry and Bree as victims on opposite sides proved. However, it also highlighted the medical drama’s overreliance on massive crises without tangible, life-changing consequences now that Grey’s Anatomy shies away from killing off characters that have been in the TV show for some time. Credit: MovieStillsDB What makes matters worse is that Grey’s Anatomy season 23’s plane collision comes immediately after the bridge collapse of season 22’s finale. While some time must have passed based on the VIP floor opening and Toni Wright returning from a trip out of state, narratively speaking, one disaster is perceived as following the other as the two crises effectively happen back-to-back. In addition to reinforcing the idea that everything terrible happens in Seattle in Grey’s Anatomy’s universe, the disaster inevitably lowers the stakes of the medical drama, especially if Grey’s Anatomy season 23 were to wrap it up in an episode. Indeed, previous seasons of Grey’s Anatomy would spend at least a couple of episodes on the disaster at hand and its aftermath, while all the markings of season 23’s premiere point to the crisis being solved quickly. Grey’s Anatomy season 21’s finale itself employed an opposite tactic to what season 23 did. The episode not only ended in a massive cliffhanger that potentially endangered everyone in the hospital, but Grey’s Anatomy season 22’s premiere also revealed that Natalie Morales had died. The explosion thus delivered on the scary premise of season 21’s cliffhanger ending and its consequences had ramifications that impacted the characters well into season 22, as Amelia’s sabbatical and Link’s long recovery proved. Why Grey's Anatomy Needs To Stop Churning Disasters With No Real Stakes Grey’s Anatomy made its name on killing off main characters, which in turn gave the medical drama believability whenever it put its key characters in danger. Even if only a small percentage of the disasters that happened in Grey’s Anatomy resulted in a central character’s death, its tendency to kill off secondary ones whose storylines had been at the forefront for some time reinforced the belief that Grey’s Anatomy would kill any character. Instead, Grey’s Anatomy season 23’s premiere showed that the plane collision provided nothing more than a chance to create a sense of danger for the doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial, making the disaster just for show. Even more unfortunately, the only development that the crisis and the pilot dying as a result achieved was kickstarting Grey’s Anatomy season 23’s most intense plot by getting Amelia and Toni back together. What makes such a choice frustrating is that Grey’s Anatomy rarely did so in the past. Indeed, besides benefiting from its reputation for killing off key characters, the medical drama also spent some time on the aftermath of each disaster. Meredith almost dying in the ferry crash in Grey’s Anatomy season 3, and Derek almost losing the use of his hands after Grey’s Anatomy season 8’s plane crash are only some of the examples that almost completely changed the course of the medical drama’s protagonists’ stories, and Grey’s Anatomy followed such developments over the course of multiple episodes. The threat disasters pose not being believable anymore thus cheapens Grey’s Anatomy’s drama. This forces Grey’s Anatomy to reduce the number of its deadly disasters, or it risks embodying the fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, effectively losing the power to worry its viewers with just a whiff of a disaster. Release Date March 27, 2005 Network ABC Showrunner Meg Marinis Cast Ellen Pompeo Dr. Meredith Grey Chandra Wilson Dr. Miranda Bailey Created by Shonda Rhimes, long-running medical drama Grey's Anatomy depicts the professional and personal lives of the employees of a Seattle hospital.