I am – Hercules!!

It’s a new ABC hourlong hospital drama about, among other things, a girl who paid her way through med school by modeling underwear. Its best known cast members include Katherine Heigl (who played an Isabel on “Roswell” too), Sandra Oh (who just split with the director who cast her in “Sideways”) and Patrick Dempsey, who if I’m not mistaken played the Woo-Woo Kid in “In the Mood.”

It was created and written by Shonda Rimes, who authored the screenplays for both “The Princess Diaries 2” and the Britney Spears road movie “Crossroads.”

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… As a medical drama, the show has more in common with the sweetly processed tales of "Medical Center" than more contemporary fare, such as "House" or even "Scrubs." … gets things started by having Meredith wake up to realize she brought home and slept with a guy whose name she doesn't know. Of course, because Seattle is a small town, who'd guess that the guy would turn out to be someone she meets later that day on her first shift as an intern? Even if we overlook this highly unlikely coincidence, there is a far bigger problem. Once we get to know a little about Meredith, it's clear she is far too responsible and uptight to engage in such promiscuous behavior. … each episode is just too symmetrical, too neatly planned. Without those haphazard and chaotic moments, reviews like this one soon could become autopsies.

Variety says:

… well-cast … None of this is especially fresh … There are also too many musical montages in the three episodes previewed and a "Sex And The City"-type voiceover narration in which Meredith drums home the night's lesson, just in case anyone missed it. … Those negatives, however, are offset by the polished cast and nifty little flourishes, from an intern who botches a procedure earning the nickname "007" (as in "license to kill") to Izzie laboring to be taken seriously to George wrestling with emasculation when he's dispatched to buy tampons. …

USA Today gives it two and a half stars (our of four) and says:

… Grey is something of a throwback: an old-school drama about some just-out-of-school surgeons. Still, if Grey won't exactly wow you, it does have some counter-balancing factors in its favor. Start with its appealing star, Ellen Pompeo … While hardly an exceptional series, Grey is a competent one. …

The New York Times says:

… it is refreshing to see a television show whose heroines aspire to meaningful work as well as meaningless sex. … a Girl Power version of "ER," focusing as much on the interns' love lives and career ambitions as it does on the patients' treatment. … the female interns on "Grey's Anatomy" are a postfeminist version of the heroines of Rona Jaffe's 1958 novel, "The Best of Everything." Instead of being torn between career and marriage, these bright young things agonize over which specialty to pursue …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… The series, ultimately, is its own kind of surgery, stitched together from recent hits. But if it doesn't have a unique voice, it does manage to present affecting medical scenarios and a vicarious sense of the pressures the interns face. …

10 p.m. Sunday. ABC.

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