GREY’S | Totally predictable casting spoilers

If you’ve managed to avoid this news in entertainment circles over the last couple days, I’ll do what I can to help you by putting it after the jump.

GREY’S | 5×23/5×24: “Here’s to the Future”/”Now or Never”

As viewers, we expect certain things from our television experience. The basics of storytelling demand a beginning, a middle, and an end. Since the dawn of television drama in the mid-twentieth century, scripted television has come a long way. Viewers have an appetite for more sophisticated stories, and talented writers and producers have stepped up with complex plots and three-dimensional characters. But viewers, like TV writers, are real people, flaws and all. Sometimes, we lose sight of the narrative.

GREY’S | What will be the finale’s breakout song?

Expectations are high for tonight’s two-hour season finale of Grey’s Anatomy (9p/8c, ABC):

THE FRIDAY FIVE | “Grey’s” characters I slowly came to like

As I touched on in yesterday’s Grey’s Anatomy 100th episode retrospective (and thank God and that Michael J. Fox special that ABC didn’t foist another clip show on us), the constantly swelling staff of Seattle Grace can be a mixed bag. New characters/plotlines/writers start out totally hateable and eventually worm their way into the Grey’s canon. This week, I present five examples of folks I initially despised, but eventually came around to.

GREY’S | 100 down

As of tonight’s fresh installment, Grey’s Anatomy will have an episode count in the triple digits; we’ve been promised a wedding, but it wouldn’t be the first time such happy events veered from their prescribed plans. Regardless, 100 episodes is quite an accomplishment for any show, especially one with such well-documented tension on set. Is there a showrunner working today more opaque than Shonda Rhimes? And yet, as each season winds down, this woman and her talented writing team manage to bring their stalwart show in for a satisfying landing.

SHONDA WATCH | Damn, girl

Someone please tap ABC on the shoulder and tell them to stop giving Shonda Rhimes unsustainable TV shows. Grey’s Anatomy is teetering along like a wagon with only three wheels. Private Practice is an embarassing blight on humanity. And now Rhimes has the green light to go behind the scenes of television news — an industry that’s dying almost as quickly as viewer interest in her two existing shows. Good thing Rhimes and company have a penchant for detailed stories about dead things.

GREY’S | Semi-shocker: T.R. Knight checks out

I can’t recall a set as beleagured with rumor, backstage scandal, and production turmoil in recent television history as Grey’s Anatomy has been since the pinnacle of its success a couple years ago.

The reports that T.R. Knight is leaving the show are unlikely to change that trend, which began with Isaiah Washington and whose most recent casualty was Brooke Smith’s Dr. Erica Hahn.

It’s no surprise that Knight wants out. When’s the last time George had a meaningful storyline that went somewhere? It’s been a downward spiral since that time he hooked up with Meredith and he cried during.

Then there was a failed romance with Callie, a failed romance with Izzie, and a failed romance with Lexie. There was failing the intern exam and being the chief’s glorified bitch. I can see how this material would get old — and those who dare to complain about the material are castigated by the press as whiners (see: Knight’s real-life BFF co-star Katherine Heigl).

And then there’s the blind item from last week about another original cast member who producers were about to fire — someone other than Knight. I suppose it’s too much to hope for that Dempsey is about to be shitcanned. He’s had a bad attitude about the show that saved his career for as long as I can remember.

The wheels came off this meat wagon some time ago. Spinning Addison off to the even-worse Private Practice didn’t help matters, but I’m thinking the show was unsavable even before ABC got greedy. And yet I can’t stop watching. Perhaps the entire show will just disband abruptly with no explanation?

I do look forward, five years down the road, to the tell-all books and two-hour True Hollywood Story about what the hell really happened to poor Grey’s Anatomy.

GREY’S | One more for the road

As usual, it’s been a tumultuous season behind the scenes at ABC’s stalwart medical franchise. Tonight’s installment, “All By Myself,” is the show’s last original episode in 2008. As we go into the holiday hiatus, I have so many questions. Will George finally have a purpose again? What in Shonda’s name is up with Dead Denny? And, as I’ve noticed they’re letting another male writer’s room virgin pen tonight’s episode, will it be as awkward as “Rise Up,” with its schizophrenic whiplash style?

Since I have no answers, allow me to point you in the direction of more questions. Some blind items appearing online this week suggest that Brooke Smith (Erica Hahn) isn’t the only regular bound for a sudden exit at Seattle Grace.

WEEDS | A thought on the season finale

Spoilers after the jump…

GREY’S | ‘Anatomy’ stars support strikers; Rhimes and others refuse to work

The cast of Grey’s Anatomy spent some time on the picket lines this week. Check out this AP caption which mistakenly identifies Grey’s co-star James Pickens, Jr., as his character, Richard Webber.

Meanwhile, Anatomy and Private Practice creator/executive producer Shonda Rhimes is one of many showrunners refusing to perform any production duties on their shows, in support of the striking writers.