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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: May 17, 2007
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Grey’s Anatomy, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” (Season 3, Episode 25). [Stream on Netflix.]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The third season finale saw Grey’s Anatomy at its most zeitgeisty. Meredith and Derek were still tempestuous lovers, Izzie hadn’t yet begun to hallucinate ghost lovers, and the episode 1 cast was fully intact. “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” was where that all started to change. Call this the end of Grey’s phase one. It’s a show that has gone through several phases and has incorporated a near-total overhaul of its cast. The show’s remarkable longevity got its first test here, as Isaiah Washington left the show after three years and one controversy over on-set use of “faggot” as directed at gay cast member T.R. Knight. Washington’s character, Dr. Preston Burke, was one half of Grey’s Anatomy‘s second pillar relationship, along with Cristina Yang. With Washington on his way out, the show was potentially losing a lot. This was a precarious moment for the show. Luckily, Sandra Oh decided not to let anybody think about that, or about anything beyond the breakdown that Cristina was going through after Burke left her at the altar.
It’s a fantastic piece of acting, one of the best that’s ever been on the show. Cristina’s centerpiece line — “He’s gone; I’m free; damn it” — is a killer, and Oh’s performance nails the combination of relief, shame, loss, and anger that Cristina’s going through. Plus it really does sound like she’s hyperventilating.
The seeds for Grey’s Anatomy Phase Two get planted in this episode, most obviously with the arrival of Lexie Grey. But Oh’s performance in this scene was as clear a statement as any that the show would be hanging onto its emotional continuity.
[You can watch Grey’s Anatomy‘s “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” on Netflix.]
