Radio Times

Episode 1/25 Time Has Come Today

The day after the prom finds Izzie distraught on the bathroom floor, overwhelmed by grief at Denny's death. Cristina, George and Meredith each attempt to comfort their friend, although they're all struggling with their own personal crises. Meredith is particularly worried because she's lost the black knickers she was wearing when she and Derek got passionate. Meanwhile, Addison has made an interesting discovery in her husband's laundry.

Episode 2/25 I Am a Tree

Bailey becomes convinced that her slack management of the interns contributed in part to Denny's death, so she decides to toughen up. Addison, Meredith and Derek stumble through more break-up and indecision. While Meredith flips a coin to help her choose between Derek and Finn, Derek tracks Addison down to a hotel room to tell her the marriage is over.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 31 May 2007)

Grey's is the TV equivalent of a not entirely genuine sick day spent listening to Westlife and eating cream straight from the pot, all while dressed in pink polka-dot pyjamas. It's shallow, sinful and girlier than kittens.

Watch it, but don't tell anyone you did.

Episode 3/25 Sometimes a Fantasy

George is becoming increasingly frustrated by Callie's presence in the flat, and the tension soon spills over into the workplace. Not far away, Meredith is aggravated by Finn and Derek's attempts to outsmart each other in a bid to get her to agree to a date. On the wards, Alex encounters a child who boasts that she is a superhero and can't feel any pain. Meanwhile, a fragile Izzie tries to make a return to work.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 7 June 2007)

A snappy script, patients with far-out medical conditions and doctors you want both to kick and hug - Grey's is the complete package and we love it deeply.

Episode 4/25 What I Am

Car salesman Shawn Sullivan is recovering from surgery and needs a cigarette. But smoking and pure oxygen don't mix, so it looks like new plastic surgeon Dr Mark "McSteamy" Sloan's got a case. Meredith is feeling sick. Could it be the result of her liaison with the very same Doctor Sloan? Meanwhile, Addison works with a pregnant woman who may need a caesarean section but doesn't want one.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 14 June 2007)

Melt into this well-paced episode of the flimsy drama featuring doctors without backbones.

Episode 5/25 Oh, the Guilt

When a divorced couple arrive locked in an intimate embrace by their body piercings, it's up to the befuddled surgical interns to prise them apart. Unfortunately, their daughter turns up before they can be unhooked and the shock is enough to give her father a heart attack. Meanwhile, Bailey tries to help a new mother with breast cancer, and Addison and Callie each have misguided liaisons to regret.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 21 June 2007)

A perfect, piffle-pumped episode.

Episode 6/25 Let the Angels Commit

Izzie is back at work but her troubles are far from over. She is reporting to Miranda, who warns her that both their reputations are now on the line. To survive professionally, they need to prove themselves to a sceptical senior management. Meanwhile, Meredith is disappointed when Derek fails to call, but she makes the mistake of paying him a surprise visit and finds him in the company of a beautiful young woman.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 28 June 2007)

At first [Meredith and McSteamy's] constant looping in and out of a relationship made you want to tap their pixie-cute heads together. Now, I've been irritated into hoping someone will zap them with a cattle prod.

Episode 7/25 Where the Boys Are

Derek realises he needs some time to unwind, so he plans a fishing trip. But he makes the mistake of asking Preston along at the last moment, who then invites George, the Chief, Alex, Joe and Joe's boyfriend Walter. It's not long before all the tensions that have been brewing in the hospital rise to the surface, and Alex and George come to blows. Back at the Seattle Grace, Izzie loses patience with her counsellor Sidney.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 5 July 2007)

Occasionally allowing characters who don't usually cross paths to get to know each other stops the show from becoming stagnant, and gives new life to some stale in-jokes.

Episode 8/25 Staring at the Sun

Burke feels the pressure when George asks him to carry out a tricky operation on his father. As Derek and Meredith's relationship blossoms, he and Addison try to be more mature in their dealings with each other. Meanwhile, Izzie treats a man who is suffering some problems after cosmetic surgery, and a child who was accidentally run over by her nanny is brought into the hospital.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 12 July 2007)

A pleasantly routine episode, complete with the requisite needy patients, dippy doctors and brilliantly executed bickering matches.

Episode 9/25 From a Whisper to a Scream

When George asks another surgeon to perform his father's heart surgery, Cristina fears that he may reveal she's been covering for Burke, and the deceit begins to take its toll on the couple's relationship. Meanwhile, a driver loses control of his car and ploughs into a fish market, providing the medics with plenty of patients to treat - including a seriously injured pregnant woman.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 19 July 2007)

A heated, edgy episode, dripping with tension and deception. The magnificent Cristina and Burke storyline dominates. It has ebbed and swollen throughout the series, and [now] there's a shattering crescendo.

Episode 10/25 Don't Stand So Close to Me

George isn't sure how to react when his father asks him to destroy his secret stash of porn mags so that his wife won't find them if he dies. Meredith volunteers to assist with her half-sister's caesarean but panics when the delivery goes badly. Cristina feels isolated as the team turn against her, and Bailey demands she and Burke face disciplinary action.

Episode 11/25 Six Days (Part 1)

Callie takes up the cause of Heather, a difficult, moody teenager whose unhappiness stems from years of suffering severe scoliosis. An operation could dramatically alter Heather's life for the better, but Bailey is reluctant to give the go-ahead on such a risky procedure. Meanwhile, George's father requests surgery on his tumour but doesn't want his son to know. Derek tries to find a tactful way to tell Meredith that she snores.

Episode 12/25 Six Days (Part 2)

An anonymous donor comes forward to pay for Heather's operation but Bailey suspects it's Izzie and once again warns her about getting too close to patients. Addison admits to Mark that she aborted his baby because she only wanted a child with Derek. George is devastated when he discovers that Bailey and Weber operated on his father without his knowledge.

Episode 13/25 Great Expectations

George's grief seems to have sent his libido into overdrive, prompting Callie to question what he really wants from their relationship. Mark decides to put himself forward for the Chief's position, annoying Derek, who already feels slighted by the discovery that the Chief wanted Burke to take over when he left. On the wards, an Amish woman is admitted with a tumour on her cervix but although her condition is terminal, she is reluctant to contact her parents.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 9 August 2007)

Izzie finds something to spend her money on. Does this mean she'll be any less wet and irritating from now on? No. Burke and Cristina still aren't speaking. It's hard to care. Bailey is her usual troubled, scowling self, which lends weight to her flimsy colleagues' troubles.

Episode 14/25 Wishin' and Hopin'

Callie and George surprise their colleagues by secretly marrying in Las Vegas but the reactions on their return are far from enthusiastic. Meredith's mother has a brief period of lucidity, but the moment is soured when Ellis angrily accuses her daughter of putting her love life before her career. Meanwhile, surgeons are collapsing as an infection sweeps through the hospital.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 16 August 2007)

It's an unusually whimsical, carefree episode for the medics.

Episode 15/25 Walk on Water

The surgeons cope with the carnage when a ferry and a container boat collide. While Izzie faces the seemingly impossible task of helping a man who is trapped under a car on the ferry, Meredith finds herself in charge of a little girl who cannot speak and will not leave her side. Only Cristina remains at the hospital and she is still fuming because the news is out that she's engaged to Burke.

Episode 16/25 Drowning on Dry Land

As the surgeons struggle with the chaos of the ferry disaster, they find themselves reacting in unexpected ways. George lies to an injured woman that her missing son has been found, and the usually dispassionate Alex finds himself consoling a man whose pregnant wife has been killed. With the hospital inundated with victims and their distraught families, it's no wonder it takes so long for anyone to notice that Meredith has disappeared.

Episode 17/25 Some Kind of Miracle

While the team fight to save her life, Meredith dreams she is walking the corridors of the hospital where she meets Denny, who urges her not to give up. In the real world, Cristina can't cope any with Meredith's situation more and makes a sudden exit from the hospital. Meanwhile, Derek goes to let off steam at Ellis but breaks down when Addison intervenes.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 6 September 2007)

A dizzying conclusion to the ferry disaster triple bill.

Episode 18/25 Scars and Souvenirs

There are casualties when the surgeons try to shine before visiting cardio-thoracic specialist Colin Marlow. Alex's unidentified pregnant patient needs surgery on her eye but although Addison warns against operating on her too soon, Alex goes ahead and the woman starts to lose blood from her womb. Meanwhile, Derek performs a challenging emergency procedure rather than call in Burke, who then accuses Derek of risking his patient's life to impress Marlow.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 13 September 2007)

It's a welcome return to old-fashioned, frivolous Grey's.

Episode 19/25 My Favorite Mistake

George has no recollection of his night with Izzie, just a colossal hangover, and there's no time for reflection because Callie's father has come to town to meet his new son-in-law. Elsewhere, Cristina is rebuffed when she tries to inject some of the old romance into her relationship with Burke by reviving the coffee ritual of their early days. Meanwhile, the interns try to come up with their own ten-year plan for the hospital.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 20 September 2007)

The shine has worn off this week's old, soppy and predictable storyline. Time to move it along.

Episode 20/25 Time after Time

Eleven-year-old Hannah is brought into the hospital suffering from leukaemia. When Izzie refers her to the haematology department, the parents explain that Hannah is the daughter Izzie gave up for adoption and now she urgently needs her mother's bone marrow to survive. Elsewhere, Meredith's stepmother Susan keeps checking up on her, but Meredith isn't accustomed to this level of maternal affection and asks Susan to back off.

Episode 21/25 Desire

Addison can't help feeling jealous when she sees how attentive Alex is to pregnant patient Ava. But when she witnesses him comforting Ava in a moment of distress, her resentment boils over and she accuses him of overstepping professional boundaries. Callie also reaches her limit with Izzie and George's flirting and tells Izzie she wants her husband back. Meanwhile, Richard has to treat the chairman of the hospital board, who is suffering from swollen testicles.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 4 October 2007)

McDreamy/Meredith tension was cut from the mix when they got together and now writers seem keen to add more. If it means an end to cutesy subplots about Meredith's snoring, I'm all for it.

Episode 22/25 The Other Side of This Life (Part 1)

Addison has given up on the idea of meeting a life partner, but she desperately wants children, so she heads off to Los Angeles where her old friend Naomi works as a fertility specialist. Back in Seattle, Cristina panics in the bridal shop when she realises that her mother and mother-in-law are organising a big, traditional white wedding instead of the intimate event she wanted.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 11 October 2007)

Addison heads south in this cluttered double bill. You're about to be fed the set-up for her spin-off show, Private Practice, set in a Santa Monica fertility clinic.

It's an efficient way to introduce a sister programme, but it does mean putting up with a scattered, unfocused mesh of storylines. There's lots going on at Seattle Grace, too, and serious Grey's fans may feel like they're being cheated out of some in-depth action as we're continually forced to divert our attention to the shiny new show. A first look reveals something more typically Californian. It's bright, glossy and the cast look rather less haggard.

Episode 23/25 The Other Side of This Life (Part 2)

Addison's stay in Los Angeles has opened up new opportunities. She's impressed staff and patients at the Ocean Wellness Group so much that they have offered her a job, and she's also caught the eye of acupuncturist Pete. At the Seattle Grace, Ava, the ferry disaster survivor, needs emergency surgery to stem bleeding in her brain - a procedure that may also restore her memory. Meanwhile, Meredith's stepmother undergoes tests to diagnose a mysterious illness.

Episode 24/25 Testing 1-2-3

Meredith is about to take her end-of-year exams, but with her stepmother's funeral scheduled for the same day, the pressure is immense. George is also under stress as his decision to leave the Seattle Grace provokes conflicting reactions from Callie, Izzie and Miranda. On the wards, Alex realises that Ava must have regained her memory but cannot understand why she is so secretive about her real identity.

Episode 25/25 Didn't We Almost Have It All

While Cristina copes with Burke's overbearing and insensitive mother, an anxious Burke tries out his wedding vows on Addison, Izzie and the nurses. Derek and Meredith desperately try to come to an agreement about their future. Callie announces to George that she wants to have a baby. Addison advises Alex to pursue his relationship with his patient Rebecca.

RT Choice (Ruth Margolis, 25 October 2007)

A powerful, brooding finale that will swallow you up.