Grey’s Anatomy: The Music Event – Reviewed
*Possible Spoiler Alert* – You have been warned.
As I’ve made it very clear, one of my favorite shows currently on television is Grey’s Anatomy. This Thursday, March 31st, was their highly touted ‘Music Event,’ “Song Beneath the Song”.
I’ve never been a huge fan of musical episodes, they generally don’t work well with the storyline. They are often over dramatic and completely outside the norm of the show (story wise). Too often the show is written around really powerful songs rather than songs being placed around really powerful writing. My favorite musical episode is from Scrubs (My Musical). Really brilliant writing and song writing, not powerful, but brilliant. But I digress…unfortunately for Grey’s Anatomy, this episode wasn’t on par with past episodes (musical or not). It felt like a forced/awkward intimate situation. Normally when I watch Grey’s, I zone out. Nothing interrupts me. This episode, I watched, paused, looked up song titles, watched, paused, etc. It wasn’t that entrancing. While I feel like the writing and music were probably laid out together instead of one being done before the other, it felt like it was entirely about the music. The acting took second stage to the music. This episode is such a powerful story that could have been so much better had it been a regular show. Unfortunate for an episode that was so highly advertised; unacceptable for a show the caliber of Grey’s Anatomy.
Below is a list of songs (in order of which they were played) and a rating 1-10 on how good the song was.
If I Lay Here – Callie, Hunt, Bailey – 7
Just Breathe – Little Grey – 7
How We Operate – Hunt – 4
Wait – Bailey, Little Grey, Kepner – 4
Runnin’ on Sunshine – Callie, Nurse Eli, Hunt, Henry Burton (patient), Karev, Bailey, Altman, Arizona, Little Grey, Meredith – 6
Universe & U – Callie, Arizona – 5
Grace – Callie – 6
How to Save a Life – Hunt, Meredith, Altman, Sloan, Arizona, Karev, Callie, Basically the whole cast – 5
The Story – Callie – 3 – This song was just bad. The vocal wasn’t terrible, but the fact that they made it look like a cheesy music video made me want to cut out my eyeballs. Why would they take something so perfect and ruin it with music.
In case you were wondering, she said, “Yes.”
—————————————————————
Be sure to subscribe to the Digital Reviews Monthly podcast. Next month’s episode will include this, and many other reviews of the entertainment world! Instructions are on the right.
- Getting Better.
- Getting Worse.
- Cancelled
Well, Kev — I was dragged by my household to watch that last song. I cannot speak to whether it fit or didn’t fit into the context of the whole show, as I stopped watching it some time ago (I really do not like prime time soap operas), but I thought that song and her presentation of it were fantastic. The “interactions” she had during it with her bedridden self were very touching (and realistic). (I also hate musicals in general. But I did like Mama Mia. Go figure.)
I Disagree! First of the the song “The Story” was the best song of the night. Sara has killer vocals! She made the whole episode! Her acting & singing her outstanding!
I loved the episode! I do agree that the storyline would probably have been better without the music because it was so emotional & intense but the producers did well meshing the music into the story. The worst part of the episode for me was the “Runnin’ on Sunshine” segment. That threw the episode off a bit. But I will say your have to watch it back and then the music segments will make more sense. All of it was going on in Callie’s brain as she was suffering traumatic brain injuries causing her to hallucinate.
Greys producers did an amazing job selecting Sara Ramirez to hav ethe leading role in the music event. If it was another actor leading the story, I think it would have been a total flop.
Ashley – I agree they chose the right person for the job. It was clear from the lack of singing by everyone else that no one else was fit for the job. Sara Ramirez definitely has some pipes on her. I just felt it was entirely unbelievable the way the last song was presented. Definitely agree that the Runnin’ On Sunshine threw it off, but the vocals on it were good, and it was somewhat uplifting. It is odd that she would be imagining the other people singing the song when they aren’t near her AND they were all essentially sleeping with each other.
For me, the first song was the best. As I said, the last song was vocally great, but the fact that they made it look like a music video really took me out of the story.
For a show that lost a whole lot of viewers with the ‘Izzy Stevens hallucination episodes’, it surprises me that they would take a risk like this.
I think I’ve made it quite clear that I don’t watch this show. (I did watch season 1 just to prove that I have an open mind – I don’t even think I told Kevin that…) I did go and watch the songs from this one, though, when I saw Kevin’s review.
I’m not a musical show “veteran”, as most of the shows that I watch regularly don’t exactly have a music episode in their futures. My only experience is with the Scrubs episode “My Musical”, as mentioned above in the review. To me – that was just a logical episode for Scrubs, because music had always played such a key role in the series. Needless to say, I loved this episode.
When it comes to the Grey’s Anatomy episode, I do have to give them credit for using their own people for the vocals. Even though they really only focused on a few cast members (obviously the others must have been so bad that they couldn’t even lip sync.) Sure, they did have the Ramirez girl sing the big numbers, but it was a good use of the cast overall.
Since I only watched the songs, I didn’t see anything of the story. From a musical standpoint, I really thought they were well-done. Sure they were cheesy, but it’s a musical episode of Grey’s Anatomy…I wasn’t expecting anything else! I enjoyed the music, I really enjoyed the song at the very end…but I also love the original song as-is. (Brandi Carlile has some serious talent.)
All in all – I really enjoyed the music, but like Kevin said, the story still has to be there. The whole point of the musical episode is to keep the story flowing, but adding in the musical element as a supplement. I’ll take Kevin’s word that the story suffered. To be honest, though, I will say that I’m a sucker for non-singers (and by that, I mean non-pro singers,) putting themselves out there on such a big stage – and I really enjoyed watching the clips on YouTube.
Also – I do think it’s important to know that Sara Ramirez, (Callie,) is NOT just a surprise that the producers found when preparing for this episode…Ms. Ramirez is quite accomplished as a singer, winning a Tony Award for her role in Spamalot on Broadway. She has also released two solo albums. (It’s not quite the same as having Zach Braff belt out a tune!)
This was a rotten episode.
I can’t shake the feeling that this music event was just a cheap attempt at trying to cash in on Glee’s popularity (as are many other prime time shows). House had a similar segment which was equally misplaced. Thankfully, the segment was mercifully short.
I think this is easily the worst episode of Grey’s yet — and I’m a huge Glee fan. Aside from Sara Ramirez who is obviously the only cast member with real pipes, the rest of the cast had pitch problems in segments, going off key in others. It was hard to watch.
Their voices were obviously not cut out for signing, which made the signing segments even more awkward and unbearable. They sounded uncomfortable in the roles for the most part. So it came off as ridiculously cheesy and karaoke. And what’s with the signing DURING the surgery scenes? That just made it ridiculous.
I hate copycats. Grey’s should stick to what it does best and leave the signing to the professionals over @ Glee.
While it may be cashing in on Glee’s current success, it (and the House episode) definitely isn’t a first of it’s kind. There have been numerous shows that cashed in on musical episodes pre-Glee. (Me getting on a rant about the flaws of Glee isn’t going to be productive here. You can listen to Episode 7 of the podcast to hear that.)
You have to remember that they weren’t actually singing with each other, her brain just made her think they were. The most ridiculous thing about the episode for me wasn’t the singing during surgery, it was the people singing when Callie wasn’t physically in the room.