Ellen Pompeo & Patrick Dempsey Hated Grey's Anatomy's Musical Episode

The biggest danger for long-running TV shows is that they can get stuck in a rut and start losing viewers. That's why producers come up with ingenious ways to reignite people's interest in the series by adding some novelty to them. Musical episodes are a classic method of diversifying long-running shows.

For instance, ABC's fantasy drama Once Upon a Time and CBS's sitcom Life in Pieces, both favourites among their audiences, featured musical episodes. The same goes for ABC's long-running medical drama, Grey's Anatomy.

This Shonda Rhimes show premiered in 2005 and is still running. Season 19 of Grey's Anatomy concluded this past May. Impressively, the medical drama remains popular with fans even though some people have been complaining the show's quality has deteriorated to some degree. Back in the dim and distant seventh season, Grey's Anatomy decided to jump on the musical episode bandwagon. It wasn't well received, but it hardly put a dent in the show's continued popularity.

Neither critics nor viewers liked the experiment. Furthermore, the show's stars were not fond of the idea either. Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey, who portray Drs. Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd, respectively, openly talked about their dislike for the musical episode.

Titled Song Beneath the Song, the episode aired towards the end of season 7 and followed Sara Ramirez's Callie Torres and Jessica Capshaw's Arizona Robbins as they got in a serious car accident. It depicted their spirits watching the resuscitation of their bodies, accompanied by singing.

In one of the initial episodes of Ellen Pompeo's podcast, she and Patrick Dempsey recalled the dreadful experience of shooting the musical episode.

'Sorry to disrespect who wrote it but, I mean, that musical – we were horrified, right? I did sing a little and I was like, "Listen, guys! I'm telling you right now I can't sing," Pompeo recalled to her co-star, also remembering that other colleagues, including Ramirez, were accomplished vocalists.

The actress portraying Grey's Anatomy's central character went into detail about how she asked the producers for help with the musical episode, fearing she might back out of the production. According to her, she was entirely committed, but she was realistic about her abilities – she knew she wouldn't excel at it.

'I totally chickened out. I chickened out completely. I was like, "No way in hell am I going to sing!" It didn't make sense to me then. And now when you see it, you're like, "Oh my god!" At least they tried…' Patrick Dempsey revealed.

Indeed, the consensus today is that the musical episode should never have happened. Fortunately, Grey's Anatomy bounced back ratings-wise and is still going strong, with season 20 having just been confirmed.

Source: YouTube.