‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Lifespan: Is season 13 the end, or anywhere close to it?

“Grey’s Anatomy” is one of those shows that has been on television at this point for so long, it is rather difficult to envision a time before it was on the air. It’s been a relentless source of conversation, a tremendous earner for ABC, and a great vehicle for executive producer Shonda Rhimes to cultivate her empire. Without this show, it’s hard to imagine ones like “Scandal” or “How to Get Away with Murder” existing. This helped to bring her further on the map.

Now, we do have to remember that we’re entering season 13. Many actors, including Ellen Pompeo and Justin Chambers, have been around since the very first season. They may be paid extremely well for their work, but it is still work and these are long hours. You can make the case that for some of them, they don’t really even need to work anymore for them to be happy. They could just kick back, relax, and do some projects here and there.

It ultimately does feel rather fair to say that many of these people do simply enjoy working, and being a part of this family. That’s why they stick around. The purpose of these Lifespan articles is to figure out how long a long-running show could in theory stay on the air, and for “Grey’s” the answer actually seems rather simple: For as long as Pompeo wants to be around.

At one point years ago, we did hear talk that if Ellen were to leave, you could make the show more about Lexie, since the title would still work. However, Lexie’s now dead, and while technically Maggie has been revealed as Meredith’s half-sister, would that really work as well given she’s only been around the show a short period of time? Without Meredith, it’s hard to imagine the carousel continuing to spin.

We know we’re getting one more season. Personally, we’d like to see it go out on a nice milestone number like season 15. It’s to be seen if that happens, but we want to know in the poll below how long you envision the show lasting!

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