‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Fans Are Calling Out Producers for Falsely Advertising the ‘Station 19’ Crossovers
Since Jan. 23, 2020, Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19 have almost weekly crossover events between the two shows. What this generally means is that the storylines blend with characters from one show appearing on the other.
However, fans are getting hostile about the many crossover events — claiming that the producers of the shows are falsely advertising that the two shows are going to overlap.
What does the series ‘Station 19’ have to do with ‘Grey’s Anatomy?’
The fire station show Station 19 is a spin-off to the ABC flagship series, Grey’s Anatomy. It began on Mar. 22, 2018 and is set in Seattle like the original show. The action-drama took star Jason George — who portrays Ben Warren — from Grey’s Anatomy to star in the show that features the lives of the men and women at Seattle Fire Station 19.
Co-producer of the show — Krista Vernoff — explained in an interview that the writing team is doing it’s best to ensure that each episode is a stand-alone story. They do not want viewers to watch both shows if they don’t want to.
“Each hour of each show needs to be a whole story [by] itself,” Vernoff told Variety. “And when merged with the other show, when there are crossover elements, it needs to feel like, ‘Oh, that’s a bigger movie.’ So I had to make two-hour movies, [but] if you only watched [either the first or last] hour, you felt totally satisfied.”
The writing team feels that you can watch either show and not be lost. However, there is a more cohesive picture if you watch both.
Why are fans claiming that the producers are falsely advertising the ‘Station 19’ crossover events with ‘Grey’s Anatomy?’
“OMG, I just watched [Station 19] because I was bored, but literally, it had nothing that related to Grey’s,” one fan wrote on Reddit. “You would miss nothing if you didn’t watch it, they basically stayed at the firehouse the whole episode. They had that face time with Carina, but do people even care for her; she is not a series regular.”
Fans are outraged that every episode promo indicates that the shows are planning a crossover event. However, when they tune in to Station 19, they haven’t seen many of Grey’s Anatomy‘s characters at all.
“So annoyed tonight’s episode is yet another crossover,” another fan added. “If Station 19 can’t stand on its own, they should let it go. It’s taking valuable screen time from Grey’s. This season alone has issues. Stop dragging it down just for the sake of keeping another show on air. If it’s good enough, [Station 19] will succeed and find its own fan base.”
Viewers don’t like feeling pressured to watch both shows. However, when the promo indicates that there is a crossover event, they tune it to make sure they don’t miss anything with their Grey’s Anatomy characters.
Did ‘Private Practice’ do as many crossover events as ‘Station 19?’
The spin-off is not the first for Grey’s Anatomy. In 2007, the medical drama Private Practice premiered, featuring the former Grey’s star Kate Walsh as the lead, Addison Montgomery Shepherd.
Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice had a total of nine crossover events over the course of the six seasons that the spin-off was on air. In six years that means it happened less than two times per season.
For Station 19, there are four crossovers in the works for season 3 alone. The weekly promos also include both show names and clips from Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19.
