Grey’s Anatomy is in its 19th season and while the quality is questionable at this point, its popularity is undeniable. A lot of people still watch it and as such it keeps getting renewed despite the many main cast departures. Even Ellen Pompeo’s titular character seems to be on her way out. Anyway, creator Shonda Rhimes and her longtime producing partner Betsy Beers appeared on theSkimm podcast and talked about their experience pitching the series. Apparently, the old, male, TV execs were skeptical of the pilot plot and felt that the one-night stand that kicked off the show would deter viewers.

Nineteen seasons in, “Grey’s Anatomy” is still one of the top medical dramas on TV.

But creator Shonda Rhimes faced a few hurdles back in the early 2000s when she was trying to get the ABC series made.

Rhimes, 52, and her producing partner Betsy Beers appeared on the “9 to 5ish with theSkimm” podcast with the CEOs of theSkimm, Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg, this week.

The Shondaland head reflected on a conversation she had with “old men” TV execs when she was pitching the series.

Rhimes explained the men were hesitant to have a show on the air where a woman so blatantly shows off her sexuality.

Ellen Pompeo — who still stars as Dr. Meredith Grey on the show — was seen in the 2005 pilot having a one-night stand with future husband Derek Shepherd (played by Patrick Dempsey).

Moments later, Meredith stumbles into the hospital for her shift and bumps into none other than Dr. Shepherd.

“I remember getting called into a room full of old men, and they brought us in to tell me that the show was a problem because nobody was gonna watch a show about a woman who would sleep with a man the night before her first day of work,” Rhimes said on the podcast. “And they were dead serious.”

She said she understood why the men would feel this way.

She noted: “These guys don’t know anything about what’s happening in the world right now, but they’re the people making the decisions.”

“There had never been a show in which there was a lead character who owned her sexuality” on network television, she said.

The “Bridgerton” producer continued: “There had not been shows in which you saw three or four people of color in a room talking unless it was on a sitcom.”

While Rhimes doesn’t believe that female TV characters feeling sexually free was “revolutionary” at the time, she stated that she was just trying to make a series that was of interest to her and people like her.

Rhimes then explained how Beers rescued her during the tense meeting. The male execs had wondered what type of audience would watch a show featuring a lead female protagonist getting drunk and having flirtatious hookups.

Beers had boldly entered the room full of men and exclaimed: “That’s me, I did that!”

“They could not get out of that room fast enough,” Rhimes reflected. “And they couldn’t call me a slut to my face,” Beers joked.

The “Grey’s Anatomy” pilot was watched by more than 16 million, and 17 years later, the show still has millions of followers.

[From The New York Post]

Those old men telling Shonda and Betsy that no one would watch a show about a woman who would have sex the night before her first day at work is hilarious and so overly dramatic. Even considering the time — around 2004, when the pearl-clutchers came out after Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl BS — their concern seems completely overblown and silly and weirdly specific. Like wow, how could anyone destroy the sanctity of work by daring to have sex the night before? I’m sure literally no one thought that then. This was more just about these old men being uncomfortable that a woman would own her sexuality and also kill it at work, and be more focused on the latter to pine after the one-night stand partner. Meredith definitely pined later, but throughout that episode she was the one rebuffing Derek. That’s probably what really bothered them. It’s funny that Betsy was just like “it me” when the old guys expressed their disbelief. Shonda’s right, they were out of touch. It’s also funny because it was considered sexy and groundbreaking at the time, but when re-watching Grey’s it seems positively tame compared to current TV and even Shonda’s later shows like Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.

Embed from Getty Images

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Shonda Rhimes (@shondarhimes)

photos credit: Sue Andrews/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram