The guys' guide to ‘Grey's Anatomy’

All right, everybody, take your seats. I hereby call to order this meeting of the “Dudes Who Watch “Grey's Anatomy” support group. Grab some beer and pretzels and settle in.

Hold up — guys watching “Grey’s”? Shouldn’t we be using our barely opposable thumbs to flip between “The Sopranos,” “24” and hockey? Nope. If you think “Grey’s” is only for the ladies, you’re even more wrong than Izzie and George’s drunken hook-up. Believe it or not, more than 6.4 million men tune in each week. That’s more people — men and women combined — than watch just about anything on the CW.

But bring it up at softball practice, and watch the men scramble for cover. Because of “Grey’s Anatomy’s” overwhelmingly — and, frankly, undeserved — feminine reputation, you’d be hard-pressed to find a guy who’ll admit to tuning in. So I’ll go first.

I’m a latecomer to the “Grey’s” phenomenon. When it first aired as a midseason replacement in 2005, a talky nighttime soap about relationships and vagina monologues was the last thing I wanted to watch. “Desperate Housewives” in scrubs? Uh, no thank you. I preferred to spend my time watching far more manly programs — like Strawberry Shortcake cartoons or “The View.”

But eventually, “Grey’s” wore me down, just like it did thousands of other men who came for the behind-the-scenes drama playing out in the press and stayed for the well-written characters, edge-of-your-seat drama and hooky plots. I came to see what all the Isaiah Washington hubbub was about, and now I’m catching up on old episodes on the first-season DVD and reruns on Lifetime.

Let’s get something straight: As much as it’s developed a reputation as a show with the highest estrogen levels since “Guiding Light,” “Grey’s Anatomy” has plenty to appeal to the more testosteroney among us. Ostensibly a high-pressure workplace drama, “Grey’s” follows whiney intern Meredith Grey and her co-workers at Seattle Grace Hospital as they cut people open and sleep together. Based on the concept alone, it’s girlier than a puppy wearing a pink dress and a bow in its hair. But the gender-bridging appeal of “Grey’s” lies in its execution.

Personality-driven plots
Hardly the weepy melodrama you might expect; “Grey’s” is fast-paced and easy to digest, filled with clever quips, zippy plots and enough activity to appeal to even the shortest attention span.

But to those who complain that “Grey’s” is turning into an “ER” clone and falling into outlandish-crisis-of-the-week mode: it just ain’t so. Those elements have been there from the beginning. On her second day on the job, Meredith walked around with a bitten-off male member in a cooler. And it’s only gotten more intriguing from there. Since then, “Grey’s Anatomy” has featured exploding bomb-squaders, toxic cancer patients, and record-breaking tumors.

The recent ferry-boat-accident three-parter did smell a little like an average Thursday night over on NBC, but “Grey’s” more often than not transcends its doctor-drama structure. Like network-mate “Lost,” “Grey’s” spills enough blood, weaves enough spider-webby connections and spins creative enough yarns to keep the “average guy” coming back for more.

And like “Lost,” what “Grey’s” has been able to do — far more successfully than “ER” — is build characters the audience cares about, so much so that the drama and explosions take a backseat to personality-driven plots.

Izzie’s devastation over the death of Denny continues to resonate. The damaged best-friendship between Shepherd and Sloan is settling into an uneasy truce. Karev continues his slow — and credible — transition from superficial plastic-surgeon wannabe to aspiring fetal specialist.

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