10 Reasons Why Virgin River and Grey’s Anatomy Are the Exactly Same Show
Soap Opera Has Moved from the City to the Wilderness
My daughter forced me to watch “Virgin River.” Or maybe it was just one evening in which I couldn’t find anything else to watch so I gave it a try. Or maybe I was tipsy after several glasses of prosecco and my finger slipped while cruising Netflix and there I was, watching this idiotic show about a bunch of seemingly perfect people in their perfect workspaces having all sorts of life-threatening trauma and complicated relationships set in a perfect world.
Wait. This seemed familiar. And yet it took me until season three to finally get it. The moment came when Mel and Jack got into a private seaplane together for a birthday jaunt. I said out loud to no one in particular, “That plane is going to crash and one of them will save their lives.” Bingo. It was my advanced degree in Grey’s Anatomy that led me to that obvious plot twist.
I fundamentally know that Virgin River (or VR) is just another iteration of Grey’s Anatomy (GA) because my reaction to both shows is exactly the same. I hate these shows, they are unrealistic, the plots are dumb, the acting sucks, the dialog is stupid, and yet I can’t turn away. I mean, 17 seasons of GA, and still, my 25-year-old sends me a text when the next season comes out to alert me. But by then, I’ve already binged the whole season and have to keep the plots to myself so she can have her own good time rolling her eyes and scoffing. Now we are doing the same thing with VR. And that’s because they are simply the same show in a different location.
The Evidence:
1. All the actors in both shows are either good-looking or downright beautiful, the kind of beauty you don’t see walking down the street. The kind of beauty that heads to Hollywood, not to a hospital or the hills. And here’s an important cross-over “tell” — the main guy in Virgin River, Martin Henderson, was in seasons 12 through 14 of Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Nathan Riggs. He was also the boyfriend of Meredith Grey for a few episodes until he left Meredith (the woman who stole my name) for some long-lost love which was obviously Mel who was waiting for him beside the river known as Virgin. You could call this a lateral shift for Henderson because the shows are exactly the same; all he had to do was lose the New Zealand accent and exchange his blue scrubs for a flannel shirt. To underscore my point, he also ends up with the main female protagonist of both shows. And yes, Henderson is gorgeous but aren’t they all? As a caveat, the only physically unattractive person in the town of Virgin River is Anette O’Toole but on the show, she’s married to actor Tim Matheson. Excuse my age, but Matteson was a major hottie in Animal House in 1978, and I, and all women my age, haven’t forgotten (and he looks pretty good for an old guy now). As an aside, how bout those astronaut helmets they wore during their Covid episodes? The point was to continue to show off their pretty faces.
2. Everything happens to everyone on both shows. Grey’s Anatomy is famously a stream of disasters. There are ferry boats crashing into Seattle, people coming in with giant Christmas ornaments sticking out of their ribs, people with diseases we never heard of, assaults on the hospital, and various climate disasters that cripple the hospital and make the players medical heroes. In VR we get drug dealers, guns, fugitives, ex-military with bad PTSD, a previously unknown grandson with a terminal disease, death of a good friend, a car crash, and brain damage. I’m just waiting for that so-called Virgin River to swell and overflow its banks and wipe out a lot of extras as the stars save the town.
3. Both have a medical theme. The main female character on VR, Mel, could easily be a visiting doctor on Grey’s, maybe in OB-GYN because that would fit well with her role as a nurse and midwife on VR. Or maybe she lost her job at Grey-Sloan Memorial and was banished to VR, bringing her gorgeous looks, and her disaster-filled, emotionally complex life with her. Mel works for what is supposed to be a country doctor on his way to retirement, but like on Grey’s (Dr. Richard Webber I’m looking at you.), he refuses to go. That country practice is filled with emergencies just like GA although we see less blood and ripped tissue. But the trade-off in VR is the many ongoing health issues such as cancer, dementia, and macular degeneration. And don’t get me started on the endless number of pregnancy crises in that mountain town.
4. There are so many many babies on both shows. In the early seasons of Grey’s, we had babies here and there and then the main characters started to reproduce and adopt and what do you know, just in time, there’s full-time and presumably free daycare at the hospital so they can just drop their babies off and not think about them surgical an 18 hours surgical rotation. Babies are popping out all over in VR and it’s only the third season so more are sure to come. These babies have confusing proveniences but somehow there is always great childcare for anyone born in VR as there is for anyone who works at Grey-Sloan Memorial. My point? In both places, only pretty people have access to decent childcare.
5. The main activity on both shows is people wistfully wanting, happily having, or remorsefully regretting sex with people in the hospital/town. All this intimacy creates lots of interpersonal reluctance and confusion in both places. And when the plot sorts that confusion out, it starts again with some other characters. I have asked friends who work in a hospital if it’s true that they have no time to do their job because they are too busy having sex in the hospital broom closets. They laugh and say, “It’s nothing like that.” But I don’t believe them. I once lived in Boulder Colorado, a mountain town, and I had a really good time, better than any other place I lived. I believe if you want to get laid, go work at a hospital or move to a town near a roaring river and big mountains.
6. People on both shows spend a lot of time sacrificing for others, which, of course, is nothing like the real world where no one does anything for anyone but themselves. In VR you get gourmet food at Jack’s bar for free if you are down and out. Knitters there will bring you a cake and water your garden if something happens to you. Everyone in town is so very very concerned when someone has a car accident, a run-in with the police, or a cold. In GA, people pick up each other’s children and babysit them for days even though they, too, have work. Everyone also takes a shift in the operating room in the blink of an eye. Oh please. Has anything like that ever happened to you in real life?
7. Everyone has a job in both places. VR is not full of bums living in the woods or poachers trespassing. Somehow, in the middle of nowhere, everyone finds work, be it at the cupcake truck, Jack’s bar, or the construction yard. In GA there is not a single unemployed person unless the plotline calls for a houseless person with a tree limb coming out of his or her chest. And what about health insurance? Apparently, everyone in GA and VR has health insurance. Ha ha.
8. There is no garbage in either place. I mean, both settings are sparkling clean. We know hospitals have to keep up with sanitation, but why is VR so spotless? It’s the wilderness, for God’s sake.
9. They are both set in cities but we never see those cities. For all we know, Jack’s Bar and the health clinic are the only places in VR and there is only one hospital in Seattle and nothing else.
10. The dialog is similarly lengthy, inter-personally twisted, and not like any conversation you’ve had with anyone. But of course, this is what hooks us.
If only I was gorgeous, lucky enough to have sex with any number of other gorgeous people, and had endless blitheringly personal conversations like the characters on these two shows I could stop watching them altogether.
