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ON MEREDITH'S RUT ''The relationship stuff with Patrick was tough,'' Pompeo says. ''It was so repetitious and I had nothing new to give. I've done this so many times, I couldn't make it interesting''
PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN STEPHENS

The road to a happy ending — or at least as happy an ending as you can get on Grey's — has been rocky, to say the least. It involves a creator who may have been overburdened while running two shows, a batch of plotline misfires, and the question of how much influence fans should have over the direction of a series. Behind the scenes of Grey's Anatomy, the story of the past two years is as sad as it is hashed over. First came Isaiah Washington's homophobic slur and subsequent firing. Then reports surfaced that some of the cast weren't happy about the decision to spin off Kate Walsh's character to Private Practice. So the drama's fourth season, which began in September, was supposed to mark its return to greatness — much like the feat Desperate Housewives achieved with its whip-smart plotline featuring Dana Delany. Instead, though, the critical barbs continued when Rhimes plopped George (T.R. Knight) and Izzie (Katherine Heigl) into a romance that had less life in it than Denny, Izzie's beloved dead boyfriend. (Fans gave the George-and-Izzie coupling an equally unappealing nickname: ''Gizzie.'') Not surprisingly, viewers wandered over to the dead too: Time-slot rival CSI began to beat Grey's routinely in total viewers, and the medical drama shed almost 2 million viewers versus the 2006-07 season.

On top of all this, Rhimes was splitting her time between Grey's and her new baby, Private Practice. ''Everyone says having two kids is exponentially harder than having one, and it is,'' says Rhimes. ''Suddenly, you have 20 actors and two writing staffs that need your attention. But I don't feel like Grey's suffered when my time was spread thin.'' The actors had a different perspective. ''The relationship stuff with Patrick was tough,'' Pompeo says. ''It was so repetitious and I had nothing new to give. I've done this so many times, I couldn't make it interesting.'' Dempsey was equally frustrated, and like Pompeo, he pleaded with his boss. ''I talked to Shonda, but she was just trying to keep up with the number of episodes that were demanded of her with starting a new show. So I think she was feeling overwhelming burnout.''

NEXT PAGE: How the writers' strike convinced Rhimes to announce a reconciliation between Meredith and Derek: ''I wanted the fans to have something to hold on to while they were waiting for the show to come back.''


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