Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Fifth Season (More Moments) DVD Review
Posted by Michael Weyer on 09.15.2009
A mind-boggingly bad creative misstep and casting problems cast a shadow on an otherwise good season for the hit drama.
Grey’s Anatomy Complete Fifth Season (More Moments)
Seven disc DVD set
ABC Studios
1032 Minutes
Ghost Sex.
Long after Grey’s Anatomy goes off the air, that will be the enduring legacy of season five. A moment in which what was a generally realistic show flew off the rails in the most mind-bogglingly bad way imaginable. That decision was joined by the unexpected letting go of one popular character, bringing on an instantly loathed one and pushing one of the original cast members to the point where he chose to quit the show.
This, sadly, is par for the course for Grey’s, a series where the off-camera drama (Isaiah Washington) makes the on-screen actions pale. It’s worse because, those missteps aside, this is a pretty good season for the drama with some nice character shifts and very dramatic scenes and storylines. There’s also the light humor which can even be self-referential. But even though that misstep leads to a powerful storyline, the action itself still leaves a sour taste in the minds of fans that overshadows what good the season does.
The Show
Things kick off at Seattle Grace with the news that the hospital has dropped to twelfth in a listing of the best teaching hospitals. Naturally upset, Richard (James Pickens Jr) decides to crack down and get the surgeons to give their interns a harder time training. This effects George (T.R. Knight) who had failed his exam and forced to take his internship all over again while his former friends are cool to him. Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Patrick Dempsey) have gotten back together with Derek pushing Meredith to kick the rest of the gang our of her house so they can live together. Christina (Sandra Oh) finds herself intrigued by Owen (Kevin McKidd) a former Army surgeon back from Iraq who helps her when she’s accidentally speared by a falling icicle. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) and Izzie (Katherine Heigl) are flirting about being back together while Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Erica Han (Brooke Smith) are wrestling their newfound affair. Meanwhile, Meredith’s sister Lexie (Chyler Leigh) who has a crush on George, helps him out under the eyes of Mark (Eric Dances). Through it all, Bailey (Miranda Wilson) keeps an eye on things even while deciding she might want to transfer from surgery to pediatrics.
Now the season doesn’t start off too bad as the push to get the hospital back on track leads to some tension for the characters. George feels left out treated as an intern but manages to retake the exam to become a resident with Lexie supporting him, obviously eager to please but George is oblivious to her feelings (a nice touch of irony given how George spent the first season pining over Meredith). Meredith finds her late mother’s journal and sees how her life mirrors her mom more than she expected. Christina handles her attraction to Owen while also dealing with twists like a cocky doctor she had an affair with years ago coming to the hospital. A terrific episode shows Grey’s at its best as the staff works together to handle a “domino” kidney transplant of a dozen different people at once. There’s great stuff like when the whole thing is nearly undone as wife discovers her husband has been having an affair with the young woman donating her kidney to him and Bailey has to work hard to settle things down. But there’s also comedy when Meredith drops a kidney on the floor and Bailey uses the “five-second rule” to get it back up and handling the fall-out.
Another nice dynamic of the season involves the interns as the show plays with the residents getting fed up by their antics, truly oblivious to how they were just as bad (if not worse) in their first years. A great episode is Meredith discovering a love triangle among her interns and pulling a Bailey like move solving it all. When George becomes a resident again, the rest of the group tries to pick which of their interns to give to him. Discovering this, Bailey laughs at the idea, asking if any of them actually believes she chose them as her interns (with a couple of the gang actually having “you didn’t?” expressions). This leads to a good move as Lexie is upset George didn’t ask her to be his intern after all the help she’s given him and the writers (perhaps learning their lesson from the ill-fated George-Izzie hook-up of the past) realize these two aren’t right for each other. This frees up Lexie to hook up with Mark and while at first there’s goofy stuff like when she “breaks” his manhood during sex, it leads to the great dynamic of the “man whore” realizing he actually likes being with just one woman. There’s also a fun episode in which the gang finds the dermatology department of the hospital and are in awe of a place so sedate where the doctors get free massages and hours off.
However, the bad starts to seep in, beginning with the unexpected loss of Erica Hahn. Smith had done wonders with this arrogant doctor softening a bit and her work with Christina was quite good although a bit marred by Christina trying to get Mark to teach her on pleasing a woman. So the sudden exit, without even giving Hahn a real reason for leaving, jars everything up. That’s followed by the arrival of Sadie (Mellissa George), an intern and long-time friend of Meredith’s. Her entrance is supposed to be full of sass with stuff like having the interns operate on each other in secret to build their experience. However, she just comes off annoying as hell with her sly ways and shooting down others and you totally agree with the rest of the gang wondering how the hell she and Meredith were ever friends. Thankfully, the show gets the message and has her dumped soon even though that’s as bungled as the rest of things with the revelation she basically cheated her way into the program and no one noticed. That does have a nice bit though when she talks about Meredith not as fun and Meredith fires back at least she knows who she is and where she wants to be. Even more bungling is Mary McDonnell guest-starring as a brilliant surgeon with Asperger’s Syndrome, which makes her wary of touching and always blunt with no tact to other’s feelings. McDonnell is a great actress but the role just comes off too showy and more for the unintentional comedy it produces.
But all this is the warm-up to the moment that’s driven fans of the show crazy. Normally, I hate the label “Jump the shark” which I feel has gotten way overblown and too easily thrown about. But if ever it applied, it’s for the moment when Izzie, having seen visions of her dead love Danny (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) for a bit, actually has sex with him. Yes, you read that right, everyone outside her room thinking she’s….self-involved while she imagines herself and Danny. It’s a stunningly bad creative move, one that you’re shocked someone came up with, let alone got on screen. Even more jarring is how the show continues to work a love triangle with Izzie, Alex and Danny. Yes, it leads to the revelation of Izzie suffering skin cancer that affects her brain but there were any number of ways to get to that without going through such an incredibly stupid storyline.
Thankfully, things do manage to pick up after that on several fronts. First, we get the crossover episode with Private Practice where Addison (Kate Walsh) comes to the hospital so Derek can help her brother Archer (Grant Show) who has (I’m serious on this) worms in his brain. It’s great to have Walsh back as her presence has been missed, clicking instantly back with everyone and nice seeing her co-stars too (like Taye Diggs and Bailey striking up an instant connection). There’s good stuff like the arrogant Archer refusing to admit Derek can do the surgery and Derek coolly fires back the neurosurgeon is just a coward and the actual surgery scene is excellently done. Better is that Addison sticks around for a bit, helping with the case of a pregnant woman and finding out more of the goings-on at the hospital. It’s fun that it’s her outside eye that instantly realizes Mark and Lexie are a couple while everyone else is oblivious and a shame Walsh can’t stick around as her vibrant presence enlivens the episodes.
Another addition that helps is Arizona (Jessica Capshaw), a pediatric surgeon who bonds with Bailey when she handles the case of a dying young boy. Arizona soon begins a flirtation with Callie that blossoms nicely as Capshaw gives the role a nice air of cool that makes her more relatable than Hahn. This leads to a good twist where Hector Elizondo returns as Callie’s dad, not at all happy to hear of his daughter being divorced or a lesbian. When Callie refuses to return home, not only is she disowned but her trust fund is cut off, forcing her to live on her resident’s pay for the first time. Ramirez does a good job handling all this with her great humor and skill
and she and Capshaw really do make a good couple handling the challenges.
Things also pick up a bit when Derek loses a patient in surgery and discovers that he’s lost more people than he’s saved, putting him in a deep depression. So deep, in fact that one episode has Callie and Owen each driving to his trailer to bring him to the hospital but get pulled into his depression. A nice bit is when the Mark/Lexie affair comes out and Derek is more upset about it than Meredith is. He even declares that he prefers Richard as his best man instead of Mark and Meredith puts her foot down about letting the man who broke up her parents’ marriage stand by her new husband. While Pompeno can make Meredith a bit whiny, she is good here helping Derek along, the duo clicking so well together and forming the heart and backbone of the show. Their romance is matched by the complicated relationship between Christina and Owen. They do well together but McKidd gives the character a true dark edge with his hardships and just as things are clicking, his ex shows up needing his help with her father. There’s a powerful bit where the man coldly tells Owen that he’s glad he and his daughter broke up because he doesn’t want her near the man Owen has now become, Christina overhearing it all. This is before Owen chokes her while waking from a nightmare and Oh is brilliant as ever showing the tug of war Christina has between her emotions and her desire to succeed at all costs. A running theme in the series is how she’s pretty much the worst teaching resident because she does all the work herself, thinking the interns are unable to handle any of it and the rest have to point out that she was a rookie herself. McKidd is able to match that with his own intensity such as when he tries to teach the doctors by cutting up some live pigs and demanding they save them.
Wilson continues her great work as Bailey, choosing pediatrics for a new focus and the Chief jarred at losing his chief resident. So much so that he even tries to sabotage her efforts, which of course earns him her ire. A powerful arc has Eric Stoltz as a death row inmate suffering brain damage who happens to be a match for a young boy who desperately needs a heart. Instead of accepting Arizona’s diagnosis it’s hopeless, Bailey does everything she can to get the boy the heart, even bursting right into the operating room during Stoltz’s surgery and point-blank telling Derek to let the man die, arguing he’s on Death Row anyway. Her breakdown afterward is powerful stuff as Bailey deals with the after-effects in a believable way. Leigh and Danes make a good couple although Leigh’s real-life pregnancy pushes Lexie’s screen time down as the season goes on (at one point, they actually explain her weight gain as over-eating from worry over the Mark-Derek fighting)
But Heigl is the focus of the latter half as Izzie refuses any operations due to the poor survival rate. Christina finally outs her secret and Izzie undergoes chemotherapy and throws herself into planning Meredith’s wedding. This leads to the 100th episode which does have a wedding although not as expected and Izzie also handles her condition getting worse. Despite the poor way it started, the storyline is a meaty role and Heigl handles it with amazing ability. She may be good at comedy but the actress also takes on the dramatic power easily from Izzie refusing to accept her mortality to doing everything possible to live on and pulls you into it all. From her fears to her breakdowns and her leaning on Alex for support, Heigl reminds you why she’s the one member of the cast to win an Emmy and that, personality aside, her on-screen talent can’t be denied as she nearly redeems the entire arc.
I said “nearly.” I get the arc of Izzie being sick and all but starting it off with such an incredibly bad creative move wasn’t the way to pull people in. You may notice I haven’t mentioned a lot about George and that’s because he virtually disappears from the scene mid-way through the year. This treatment of a long-time character is somewhat insulting and not surprising Knight chose to leave the show. It does set up a powerful final scene that’s a good cliffhanger but just illustrates how out of the landscape George has been. It also illustrates how the series had so much potential to really take off and did do a good job with several stories. The actual cancer storyline with Izzie was good and Heigl did act the hell out of it but the way it started off was too much for the show to overcome. The casting changes didn’t help much although Capshaw does work out well and the rest of the cast work wonders with the material. Still, it’s hard to forget such a colossal misstep although the show does its best to let you forgive and still have hope.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10.0
Video: Widescreen 1.78:1, enhanced for 16X9 sets. As usual for ABC releases, the video is nice and crisp and since Grey’s has a lot of operations, things come off very clear (especially the intricate parts) and it handles outdoor and indoor scenes equally.
Rating: 9.0 out of 10.0
Audio: Another ABC Standard, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound with English, Spanish and French subtitles. Again, the audio is quite crisp including both dialogue and music coming through clearly with no need to alter the volume.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10.0
Bonus Features: Surprisingly, there are no audio commentaries, which were standard on past Grey’s season sets. It’s odd as you’d think this was a season they’d want cast and crew input on the ups and downs but maybe some were wary about talking about it. There is an extended cut of episode 13, “Stairway to Heaven,” that just adds more Izzie/Denny stuff.
100th Episode: Tales from the O.R. is a twenty-minute feature focusing on the 100th episode. It shows a big cast party on the hospital set with Shonda Rhimes giving a heartfelt speech over getting so far. It then moves to director Rob Corn talking about planning it out with looks at the big cast table reads (where the cast acknowledges the hard part is getting all the medical lingo right). Corn himself leads a walkthrough of the medical scenes and how they’ll be staged. They discuss the big wedding scene which took place in a real church where they had only two days to get all the lighting and sound techs and shoot in. There’s a fun bit with the poor wardrobe manager who had to dress two hundred wedding guests and picking the right dress for the bride. It also covers the editing process which is trickier than you may think in getting the right shots and angles to bring the storylines to life. A good look at a milestone for the series.
Heaven Sent is an eight minute feature focusing on the Denny character. Jeffrey Dean Morgan relates how he was hired for the show and how he realizes no matter what he does he’ll always be identified with the character. They joke about how in his original run, Morgan loved the role so much that he didn’t want to come to set for the death scene. They do discuss the idea of bringing him back in Izzie’s mind and Rimes actually claims it was “the best idea ever.” Jessica Capshaw sums up how the actors had the challenge of ignoring Morgan in scenes since they weren’t supposed to see him despite him being right behind them. The closest they come to addressing the controversy around the storyline is Rimes and other writers saying that when it came out Izzie was sick, fans wrote in to say that they got the idea. Some may argue on that but Morgan is so down to earth in the feature that it’s hard to hate the guy for the bad decisions regarding his role.
Dissecting Grey’s Anatomy is a selection of a dozen deleted scenes. Most are just extended stuff and cut for time but a couple nice ones here and there like Derek’s hysterical reaction to Mark’s “broken manhood” and George on being an intern again. All the scenes have commentary by Rhimes and producer Betsy Beers on their place and why they were cut.
In Stitches is a collection of outtakes and bloopers on set that show the cast having a good time.
A fair collection but still seems a bit bare bones for the show with such a rich background of behind the scenes stuff, particularly in a year like this.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10.0
The 411: The season has its share of good moments but the bad missteps mar the enjoyment of it overall. Still, the excellent cast (especially Heigl) are able to carry on and make the show watchable at least. A shame the extras can't support it, making this a pretty off year for the otherwise solid drama.
