Grey’s Anatomy Vs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I love Grey’s Anatomy. It entered the scene at a time when I was losing hope in television altogether from the exes all the way down. I have always been a big fan of ER but since Noah Wyle left the regular cast, I feel like there was no one there for him to pass the torch to. At any rate, no one expected a little mid-season replacement with a cast as fresh as Grey’s to take off like it did, but here we are two season’s later and the world practically stops when the show airs.
I recently watched the entire second season again as ABC was kind enough to replay it leading up to the premiere. It is obvious that this cast gels together like very few that we have seen in recent years. Furthermore, the characters aren’t segregated into little cliques so it is truly an ensemble. Miranda Bailey’s interns started out as a little clique, but their interpersonal relationships have developed immensely with other characters very quickly. They also force characters to interact who would not necessarily do so willingly or regularly, like Preston Burke and Derek Shepherd who start out the show in contempt of each other but have cultivated a grudging respect and admiration for each other. All of this points to brilliant writing and the writer’s ability to get into the human psyche.
Somewhere along the way while re-watching the second season of Grey’s I got that warm fuzzy feeling that I haven’t had since Buffy ended. If you’re a BtVS fan you know what I’m talking about. It’s a mix of nostalgia for the crew you ran with in High School mixed with grown-up teen angst and a dab of super-hero worship. Somewhere along the way I came to the realization that the leading characters in Grey’s Anatomy were the Scooby Gang with scalpels. Let me break it down:
- Meredith Grey vs. Buffy Summers: Both Meredith and Buffy are diminutive blondes who can surprise the hell out of you. They are quick-witted, funny, strong-willed (at least to a point), and defend their friends ferociously. Both Meredith and Buffy have obvious Daddy issues due to strained or non-existent relationships with their fathers. Meredith has a tendency to get drunk and diddle inappropriate men, while Buffy went steady with Angel who was the most inappropriate man a Slayer could dream of. They both act as leaders to their peer group. With Buffy this is obvious, but it becomes evident that the suck-up interns look to Meredith for direction at the end of season 2 with the culmination of Denny Duquette’s heart transplant and at the beginning of season 3 when they are deciding how to handle Izzie’s reaction to Denny’s death.
- George O’Malley vs. Xander Harris: George and Xander have a lot of heart and seem to pull through in a pinch. George performed an amazing save on a patient while stuck in an elevator. Xander saved almost all of the Scoobies from themselves (yellow crayon) and even managed to save the world on his own. George is relatively quiet and unassuming but can be brutally honest and is not above resorting to physical violence, qualities that Xander also seems to possess. George falls for Meredith the night he meets her at the mixer before her first day at Seattle Grace, while Xander fell for Buffy the first day she arrived at Sunnydale High.
- Izzie Stevens vs. Willow Rosenberg: Willow and Izzie are both powerful women but there are times when neither of them seem to realize their strength. Izzie used her good looks to put herself through medical school as a model and has been perceived to be a “pretty girl” rather than a smart girl or an interesting girl for most of her life which is the chip on her shoulder. Every day at Seattle Grace she fights to change people’s perception of her. Willow spent much of the first few seasons of BtVS trying to get Xander to notice her. She tried desperately to fight against the smart-girl sidekick label that everyone, namely Xander, had branded her with. Izzie had a meltdown and quit the medical program at Seattle Grace Hospital after the death of her love Denny Duquette which she feels responsible for. In her desperation to save Denny’s life, Izzie misused her medical skills and violates the Hippocratic Oath to exacerbate Denny’s heart condition by cutting the wires to his LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device). She did this in order to get him bumped up to the top of the UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) heart recipient list. Even though Denny received the heart and began to recover, he died alone; possibly due to a post-operative stroke which Izzie has a very hard time coping with. Willow ’s prowess with magic grew swiftly and in Season 6, she abused the magics (both dark and light) which resulted in her girlfriend Tara leaving her. Willow cleans up her act and Tara returns only to be shot and killed by a stray bullet which spirals Willow into an all-consuming rage and she attempts to destroy the world.
- Christina Yang vs. Anya: Christina Yang and Anya are both stubborn and driven. Christina’s desire to be the best at everything she does initially does not earn her a lot of friends. She is a surgical junkie and will do anything in her power to get to be part of the most difficult or interesting cases that come into the hospital. She is very cold and guarded and it is a defense mechanism she uses to keep people at bay. Christina views vulnerability and humanity as a weakness and this is evident when she has a one-on-one meeting with Chief Webber about the LVAD incident near the end of Season 2. She wants to find a way to keep her edge which she feels as though she lost because she has developed friendships and feels remorse in situations she would not have when she first entered the program. It takes her a very long time to start letting the rest of the suck-ups and even Preston Burke get to know her. Anya has an all-consuming desire for wealth and material goods. It has, from time to time, driven wedges between her and her fianc? Xander who is much more accepting of her than the rest of the Scoobies are. As a former vengeance demon, she struggles to re-claim her humanity.
- Derek Shepherd vs. Angel: Derek Shepherd and Angel are painfully intelligent, dangerously charming, and gorgeous to the nth power. They are also the guys that you could never bring home to mom. Derek is still married to his wife and neglects to share this with Meredith before they fall in love. Although he may be her soul mate, Derek is the wrong guy for Meredith as she finds out that she reports to him on her first day of work after having spent the previous night with him. Derek has a “dark and twisty” broody quality which attracts all of the women at Seattle Grace, thus earning him the nickname Mc Dreamy. Angel, being a vampire, couldn’t be a worse choice of love interest for the Slayer. He is cursed with a soul and has a brood that keeps on brooding. Buffy and Angel are soul mates but could not possibly be worse for each other.
- Finn Dandridge vs. Riley Finn: Both Finn and Riley are the kind of guys you bring home to mom. They are honest, trustworthy to a fault, and easy on the eyes. Finn lost his wife in a car accident, and when he finds Meredith he knows he is ready to move on with her. They are both “scary and damaged” but they are beginning to find out that they can be healed in each other’s arms. Unfortunately the timing is not right as Meredith is still recovering from the Mc Dreamy blues when she meets Finn, and Mc Dreamy realizes he is in love with Meredith once he realizes that she is developing a serious relationship with Finn. Riley was never really a Scooby. Even though he loved Buffy unconditionally and was the kind of upstanding corn-fed guy that mom’s live to meet at Sunday dinner, Buffy never loved him or let him all the way in because she had not evolved past her love for Angel.
- Alex Karev vs. Spike: Alex and Spike are both initially presented as the classic bad boys. Every soapy show needs a bad boy to keep things interesting. Both of these characters have huge insecurities and big bleeding hearts that start to come out over time. Alex starts off as a hot-shot gunning for a career in Plastic Surgery. Over time he grudgingly realizes that he needs the rest of the suck-ups as both friends and colleagues, he can be sweet and vulnerable especially with Izzie, and he is developing a fondness for OB/GYN assignments thanks to the She-Shepherd. Spike, after being rendered harmless to humans by the initiative, starts to show his softer side to the Scooby gang. He eventually falls in love with Buffy and seeks to be re-ensouled so Buffy would consider him worthy.
- Chief Richard Webber vs. Rupert Giles: These gentlemen both play the father figure to the younger characters on the show. Both are solid, dependable, and are willing to share their knowledge. They also have vulnerabilities and dark aspects to their personas. Richard Webber had an affair with Meredith’s mother Alice and is a recovering alcoholic. Rupert Giles strangled Ben (Glory’s brother) with his bare hands to protect Buffy and to ensure that Glory did not return. Giles also coddled Buffy which could have delayed her growth as a Slayer and as a woman, so he steps back near the end of the series to let Buffy find her way.
- Miranda Bailey vs. Joyce Summers: Both Miranda (”the Nazi”) and Joyce act as mother figures for all of the young characters on the shows. Joyce starts out as a stereotypical protective mother. She uses a firm hand with Buffy, but later when she finds out that Buffy is the slayer she grudgingly accepts it and supports Buffy’s destiny. Joyce adopts the Scooby gang and Giles as her extended family over time. Miranda is the poster child for tough love. Even though she is mouthy and puts them all in their place, Miranda loves the suck-ups dearly and mothers all of them on several occasions. The other senior surgeons also come to her for advice on several occasions, and they don’t all like what she has to say.
So far those are the comparisons that I have come up with. If you have any suggestions as to how the other main and recurring characters mirror characters in the Buffyverse, feel free to share them. I would love to hear everyone’s opnions.
Tags: ABC, BtVS, Buffy, Grey's Anatomy, Screen, WBRelated posts
September 23, 2006 | Filed Under Screen
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