Random bitching about the Grey's Anatomy season nine premiere with annotated photos and charts -- because I'm a scientist, dammit

I wish I knew how to quit you, Grey's.

Because, seriously (hah! get it?  'Seriously'?? bwahahahaha), this disrespect for both the characters AND your viewers is getting old. 

Yeah, I'm talking to you, Shonda Rhimes.

I've watched this show for going on nine years.  I've turned a blind eye to confusing timelines, to outrageous medical acts that would never happen (cut LVAD wires, anyone?), characters disappearing with little or no explanation (Erica Hahn????), and the preponderance of disasters (ferry crash/shooter in hospital/giant sinkhole/plane crash/bomb in patient), because I really love the characters.

More than you do, apparently.

The send-off you gave Mark Sloan?  Not. Good. Enough. Seriously. Really.

Oh, it was sad.  And I cried and cried, like you knew I would.  Here he is on his deathbed with his two best friends beside him, Derek and Callie:

Richard, Bailey, Jackson and Ben are waiting somberly outside. 

But who isn't at his bedside?  Who should be at his bedside, if you really cared about the characters?

Well, let me see. Oh, how about....

A. Sloane, Mark's daughter, and her baby?  Remember them? 

B. Julia, Mark's plot-device, eye-surgeon girlfriend?

C. Addison, his ex-flame? 

D. I dunno, maybe his parents???

Maybe I just think way too much about this stuff.

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And now onto the next subject.  Geography or meteorology, or both.

(This is what happens when you ask a scientific editor, someone who cares about both consistency AND scientific accuracy, to suspend her disbelief.)

(Yes, it drives people who watch TV with me crazy.)

(No, I don't think I'll stop any time soon.)

During the season premiere, we got to visit Cristina at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota:

  

Please note that she is wearing a winter coat under her scrubs, with a fur-collared hood (A).  Also present are blowing snowflakes (B). (Well, OK, I drew those in myself, but only because this is a screen capture from a video [the things I do for you people, it's a wonder I'm sane] and you can't see them blowing around in the photo like you can on the video.)  Shorthand: brrrrr, it's winter, it's cold.

During the same time period, we got to visit April at her parents' farm in Ohio:

  

Please note that she is in shirtsleeves (A) and next to some sort of blooming shrub (B).  Shorthand: mmmm, it's nice and warm and summer-like. (She also has a pig on a leash and appears to be channeling Heidi, but that's another discussion altogether.)

OK, let's look at a map now:

Rochester, Minnesota, is in the extreme southeast of the state of Minnesota, which puts it roughly 500 miles away from Ohio.  And not 500 miles due north from Ohio either.  So I find it very suspect that it's deep winter temps for Cristina and flip-flop weather for April, at the same time. 

The plane crash was up in the mountains.  Even at that elevation there was no snow -- and the doctors are in light jackets, so it has to be at least late spring or early summer, say May or June, when the crash happens. (Holy Cats! I do think way too much about this stuff!)

At that point in the year, I don't think you still get blizzards in southern MN.  Let's check out what the climate charts say. (Yes, it's official. WAY. TOO. MUCH.)

(Sorry, scientific editors love charts.)

The only thing I can think of is that the writers, who are probably all from L.A., looked at a map and said, "Hey, Minnesota is practically Canada, it probably snows all the time up there and is full of ice and goofy midwestern stereotype people."  Seriously, Truly, it's the only explanation.

And it's STUPID.

Is it stupid enough that I'm going to stop watching? Oh, hell no. I'm hooked. Despite my bitching, Thursday night will find me curled up on the couch as usual in my PJs with wine and good supply of kleenex.

I don't know how to quit Grey's. It's like Brokeback Hospital.