A Letter to ABC and Shonda Rhimes

Dear ABC and Ms. Rhimes:

I understand that it must be very frustrating for you both to be involved in the creation and production of Private Practice. It’s a truly terrible show and for once, the American viewing public is showing good judgment by not watching it. But you made the decision to take Kate Walsh off of Grey’s Anatomy and give her her own spin-off series, so I really feel that it’s your responsibility to own up to the fact that this experiment was a total failure, and stop creating “cross-over events” that trick the Grey’s Anatomy audience into watching the pile of televised garbage you call Private Practice.

I’m actually loathe to admit that I watch Grey’s Anatomy, but you were lucky enough to suck me into that show when it first aired and it was an amusing and sometimes touching soapy drama. But the quality of the show has been steadily decreasing over the past few seasons, and while I’ll still admit to watching it, I don’t respect myself in the morning anymore.

Some examples of why Grey’s Anatomy is no longer the show it once was:

• Meredith Grey is the most annoying and least likable character…but she’s the titular character! She’s always been a bit whiny and self-involved, but lately she’s been totally unbearable. She has everything she’s ever wanted: a successful career in medicine, a gorgeous man who puts up with all her immature nonsense and actually fought to be with her, a stunning house that she doesn’t have to pay to live in, and a group of coworker-friends who continue to stand by her side despite her always being too full of herself to help them with anything. Someone who has so much going for her really has no right to be so moody and brooding all the time, so please have her get over herself or finally succeed in killing herself so that everyone else in the cast can move on from her personal conflicts. Oh, and I don’t know what’s going on with those bangs of hers that she’s apparently been letting grow out forever, but she really needs a new haircut. Stat.

• Nearly all of the female characters have become utterly retarded. Aside from Meredith “Woe Is Me” Grey, there’s Izzie, who’s gone from being the somewhat naïve but sensitive one to sort of crazy and overly whiny, almost to a Grey-esque level. Meredith’s half sister, Lexie, is immature, unreliable, ridiculous, and way too old to still go by “Lexie.” Would you trust a doctor called “Lexie” with your life? Me neither. And Callie, who used to be an awesome, brassy, and ballsy woman (remember when she told off Izzie for sleeping with George because it was an insult to all women to sleep with another woman’s husband? Awesome!). But now Callie is a maybe-lesbian who is too scared and timid to do anything about it. I don’t particularly care if she’s gay or not, but she has no chemistry with any of the potential female lovers that get thrown into her path oh-so conveniently, so just accept that the storyline isn’t working and bring back brash Callie.

• Characters who weren’t utterly retarded are taken off the show. First Addison left for the aforementioned crapfest, Private Practice. Then Brooke Smith, who played Erica Hahn, was abruptly fired. Hahn was the one woman in the hospital who didn’t spend 99% of her time fretting over her personal life and hopping into bed with anyone willing, so naturally she was an outcast from day one. And apparently someone decided that her character was too much like a real person and might actually be a decent role model to viewers, so she had to go. Now there’s all sorts of rumors flying about T.R. Knight (George) leaving the show, and while he’s one of the few likable people left, I can’t blame him for wanting to move on, since we’re forced to spend too much time delving into Meredith’s insipid past to actually give him anything real to do.

So as you can see, ABC and Ms. Rhimes, I’m getting very close to dropping Grey’s Anatomy from my television viewing lineup, and I’m not your only viewer who feels like this. So it would be in your best interest to stop creating lame cross-overs to get us to watch both of your crappy shows (parasitic brain worms? really?), and call a spade a spade, and give Private Practice the axe. Then you can focus all of your time and energy on improving Grey’s Anatomy and not have to rely on lame tricks like bringing back beloved dead fiancés to get people to watch.

XOXO,

Rachel