ABC has renewed one its most popular shows, “Grey’s Anatomy,” for at least another two seasons, according to multiple reports.
Now on its 15th season, “Grey’s Anatomy” is one of the longest-running hospital dramas on television and is currently tied with another medical drama from NBC, “ER,” reported Entertainment Weekly. With the renewal of two more seasons, the show will become the longest-running medical drama ever, surpassing “ER.”
Breaking: #GreysAnatomy Renewed for TWO More Seasons at ABC as @EllenPompeo Extends Contract Until 2021 (Through Season 17) https://t.co/0s3gIDuJVc pic.twitter.com/XJBtacZIuR
— TVLine.com (@TVLine) May 10, 2019
Ellen Pompeo, who plays the show’s protagonist and titular character Meredith Grey, signed a two-year deal back in 2017 that would have ended in 2020, taking the medical drama to its 16th season, but according to TV Line, Pompeo recently added another year to that contract, prompting the show to carry on to its 17th season.
Not only is Pompeo now a producer for “Grey’s Anatomy,” she’s also the co-producer of a second spinoff, “Station 19,” starring Jason George.
According to TV Line, Pompeo wasn’t clear earlier this year whether she would renew her contract with the show after the 16th season. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last September, she also said that she wasn’t sure what her plans were.
“I’m clearly not prepared right now to make any formal announcement about what my future is on the show, but I am really feeling like we have told the majority of the stories that we can tell,” Pompeo told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s about time that I mix it up. I’m definitely looking for a change.”
However, it seems that Pompeo is up for the show’s 17th season, where she will be returning with a few other regular cast members, according to the media outlet.
“I keep saying, ‘I’m ready to move on and I want to stop the show before the ratings go down,’ but the ratings never go down!” Pompeo told the TV Line. “They go down a little bit, but the fact that we are able to hold our [title as ABC’s No. 1 series] is kind of [incredible]. It’s very cool to have these kind of ratings and be on a hit network show this [Peak TV] landscape.”
Pompeo told ET Online that regarding whether to end the show or not, that was something that she would decide together with Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of the long-standing medical drama.
She told ET Online in an exclusive interview that she had been saying that the show would end back in season two, but the series kept on coming up with interesting ways to entertain its audience, and that they would know when it was time to end the show.
ABC has renewed “Grey’s Anatomy” for two more seasons, which means the series created by Shonda Rhimes will run at least through its 17th season https://t.co/KpEXPzN36W
— CNN (@CNN) May 10, 2019
“I think the fans will let us know,” Pompeo said in the interview. “When the numbers start to drop and people aren’t watching the same, people aren’t passionate about it…it’s time to call it.”
According to TV Line, Krista Vernoff, one of the executive producers of “Grey’s Anatomy,” also extended her contract with the show until its 17th season. In an interview with ET Online, Vernoff spoke about the long-standing medical drama and how astonished she was working with the show claiming its title as the longest-running primetime medical drama.
“It’s pretty extraordinary, and a little surreal. ‘ER’ is such a television legacy and was such an extraordinary program,” Vernoff said. “If ‘ER’ didn’t exist, ‘Grey’s’ wouldn’t exist. So we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to ‘ER,’ and to [executive producer] John Wells, and we are so grateful.
“This is exciting and monumental and a little crazy, and we’re all just sort of walking around here looking at each other like, ‘What?'”
