By Ben Pobjie
Over the years, Grey's Anatomy (Seven, 10pm) has strayed a little from its original mission statement of educating and informing audiences on the finer details of human biology, and turned into some weird story about a bunch of doctors talking to each other about their sex lives. And even that is mainly just a framework to hang Dr Meredith Grey's wistful voiceovers on.
Occasionally, the doctors practise medicine – and they seem to need quite a lot of practice – but even then their patients mainly exist as means to the medicos learning valuable lessons. Which Meredith will then do a voiceover about.
Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey.
This week there are enormous lessons to be learnt from a young woman who fainted as her boyfriend proposed to her. Or did she? No she didn't. We find out early on that she's faking it, and the reason will vaguely interest you. It's a godsend for Callie, who has been moping about her love life and desperately needs a patient who can help her generate some deep insights about human relationships. Because this is a TV show set in a hospital, the young woman in question immediately begins to babble in great detail about her private life to total strangers as soon as she gets into a gown, a disorder known in the trade as "All Saints Syndrome".
Of course the doctors are well-equipped to handle this, as they spend 90 per cent of their working day discussing their own private lives, and the other 10 per cent sexually harassing each other without consequences. This last is a particular favourite of Dr Nicole Herman, played by the former Thelma, Geena Davis. Dr Nicole enjoys flirting with colleagues and/or bullying personal revelations out of them, and has found her niche at Seattle Grace, a hospital where workplace harassment guidelines exist only for comic relief.
The theme of the episode is secrets. There's the secret of where Meredith was over the weekend: is she cheating on her husband? There's the secret of what's wrong with Ben's brother Kurt: he's suffering some serious medical problems, but is the cause exactly what it obviously is, or something else? And there's the secret of how many people die in Seattle Grace every week because their doctors are obsessively tracking each other's romantic adventures instead of doing their jobs.
But as Meredith voices over, "It's not safe to just blurt out all our secrets". Safer to drag them out for as long as possible. The Grey's Anatomy way.
Meanwhile on How To Get Away With Murder (Seven, 9pm), we find out more about Wes and Rebecca's relationship, whether we want to or not. Also, Michaela is surprised by a pre-nup, though continues to take the wildly unethical and incompetent nature of her law professor in her stride. Another disappointing episode for any actual murderers looking for practical advice.