10 Reasons Why ER Is Better than Grey’s Anatomy
Binge Watching ER Turns Me into a Critic of Medical Shows
I was recently at the doctor’s office for a simple procedure. After the nurse asked the usual questions and typed them into my electronic chart, in came a very handsome young guy who introduced himself as a medical student. All I could think of was “John Carter,” the also handsome medical student who grows into an intern and then resident during the first several seasons of the TV series ER. I felt, just for a minute, that I was on the set of that fictitious medical drama that began in 1994 and ended 312 episodes later in 2009. I had started to watch the series (on Hulu) this summer after a recommendation from the “Watching” column in The New York Times which called it the best medical drama ever. Presumably, I had watched it many years ago, but now I was ready to settle into these 312 episodes again to get me through this pandemic. But in the intervening years, I had also watched the other popular medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy, and after a few shows, it became clear to me that you really can’t compare them. ER is great drama while Grey’s Anatomy is simply trash.
Let me explain why ER is so much better than GA.
1) The setting: GA happens in trendy Seattle with its bursting economy, which is nice if you like that sort of thing. And yet, accord to GA, everything bad on earth happens in Seattle — the city streets open up and cars fall into them, ferries ram right into their famous Pike Place Market, trains crash, bombs go off, and never ever take a plane to or from Seattle because they simply aren’t safe, especially if doctors are on board. In comparison, practically nothing happens on the streets of ER’s Chicago except maybe car crashes, shooting, lots of sick houseless people, and kids caught in storm drains. Seattle looks serene while Chicago, where the ER docs regularly take the “L”, look gritty and real.
2) The practice of medicine: Does anyone believe that any single person on GA knows a single thing about medicine? They say stuff but it’s clear they have no idea what it means. While on ER it seems that every rapidly performed procedure is narrated by a real doctor. That must be good writing combined with actors who can ingest all that medical information and spew it out like they actually know what it means. They also rock intubations, but then just about every person that enters ER’s ER is intubated so presumably anyone would get the hang of it eventually.
3) The procedures: GA thrives on spectacularly nutty conditions every episode — the constant parade of bizarre deformities is like sitting in front of a booth at a freak show. My favorite episode of GA is when a guy comes in with a giant plastic candy cane sticking out of his chest. Apparently, this patient was putting up decorations on his roof and got speared. I mean, really, what are the chances? I was already into season six on ER before I saw an impaling, but it was roofing material so no so odd. ER thrives on gun shots, suicides, HIV, surprise pregnancies, punches to the head, and constipation as main problems, like real life.
4) Looking like real doctors: Real doctors aren’t dressed up, they don’t have time for makeup, and they are not all gorgeous. The GA hospital looks like the Met Gala most of the time, even when the doctors are trying to look disheveled and worn out. ER has handsome people too, but not so many. George Clooney was there or the first six years and he reappears at the end, but Clooney, for all his brown eyes and nice hair, is not perfect. His laugh is dreadful and off-putting (Amal, how do you stand it?). Dr. Carter is cute and rich, but often an asshole, and his nose is just too thin. The rest of them just look like normal, tired people. Except, of course, for the Croatian doctor, but I can’t talk about him right now, because, well, he’s just too gorgeous and just my type.
5) The Headliners: I’m not too pleased that Meredith Grey stole my name, but what I really hate is her lisp. Has no one else noticed it? She seems to wander about the hospital with no clue what to do and all around her people are telling her what a great doctor she is. But Dr. Grey is the worst fake doctor ever. No one could possibly believe that this woman is a mega-talented doctor, as the cast keep pointing out. In contrast, Drs. Mark Green, Pete Benton, Robert Romano, Susan Lawrence, and Kerry Weaver all have the manner and abruptness with patients that are all too familiar. They walk away from sick people, screw up and kill people, insult each other over diagnoses and treatment, and often just don’t seem to care an iota about the people they are treating. Normal doctors, as I said.
6) Sex: Everyone in every episode of GA is having sex with someone at work. I once asked a doctor friend of mine if that’s what it was like in the hospital where he works. He laughed and said, “Absolutely not. No one has time for that.” And yet on GA there is always an empty closet or bed for some combination of the staff to get naked. I’ve seen a bit on hanky-panky on ER but in the first seven seasons I counted only four — count ’em four — hooks ups on ER between doctors.
7) Attitude: Everyone on GA is pretty nice, and the competition and egocentricity are kept at a minimum. This can’t be like a real hospital. In an early of ER one of the doctors claims he is not ambitious, and another doc chuckles and corrects him, “You’re a doctor, of course you’re ambitious.” We see completion at every turn on ER. We also see big egos that get in the way but still that doc remains as a central character, just like how we all have to put up with the competitive and egocentric narcissists at our own workplaces.
8) The body count: Patients die like flies on ER. Maybe not every episode, but it seems that often. Sometimes the staff is upset and sometimes they just walk away. They have conflicts over DNR’s that seem human. Deaths on GA are a patient here and there, but it’s mostly the doctors who sustain injuries and death.
9) The set: The GA hospital is organized and clean. You could eat off their trauma room floors. The ER of ER is a mess. After saving a life or not, a trauma room looks like a hurricane of blood, gauze, and plastic tubing just destroyed the place. Even the doctors and nurses are routinely splattered with blood, vomit, poop, and pee. One can only feel sorry for the housekeeping staff (who also show up in bit parts like real janitors). The reception rooms of GA are polite places with nurses always answer questions and know where everything is. The ER reception is cluttered with precarious stacks of files on every surface and the staff is always looking for someone’s chart. Any attempt at organization is bemoaned, patients seem to be assigned randomly, and doctors often go have lunch or a snooze in the middle of their shifts.
10) The extras: When I watch GA with my daughter, we both delight in pointing out actors who reoccur on the show t as patients with different conditions. The broken arm in one season becomes the guys with a stop sign cutting off his leg a few years later. This shape-shifting happens all the time on GA and although we are happy for those actors getting more work, would it hurt them to bring in some new talent? On ER, no one comes back unless their character comes back. The extras also seem like they were, in fact, picked up on the streets of Chicago. The houseless, the addicts, the drunks, the elderly, the lonely, the scared — ER has the complex fabric of human life down pat.
It all comes down to this: GA is a silly piece of soap opera fluff which can be fun — and fun to make fun of — while ER is a real drama about real life, or so it seems. And I am so glad to have 9 more seasons of ER to watch. That should take me into November, depending on my bingeness. After that, I’ll have to go to the ER myself for some drama or start to watch the show all over again.
On the other hand, there’s always St. Elsewhere.
