20.00–22.00Five returns to Seattle Grace Hospital for the second season of the award-winning hospital drama, currently the top-rated show in the US.Ellen Pompeo plays Meredith Grey, who, alongside fellow surgical interns Cristina Yang, Izzie Stevens, George O’Malley and Alex Karev, juggles her personal issues with the everyday life-or-death decisons she faces at work.In the first episode of tonight’s double bill, it’s Christmas at Seattle Grace, but not everyone is enjoying the festive spirit. George deals with a patient’s difficult family, Alex is quietly panicking about his looming board exams, and Cristina and Burke clash over the treatment of a young heart transplant patient.“Anxiety attacks, aneurysms and ulcers...” remarks Webber, gazing at the board. “Must be December,” adds Bailey. The day’s rounds have provided the interns with a series of difficult cases, including George’s gastric ulcer patient Nadia.She’s like the eye of a hurricane – remaining still and calm while the chaos that is her family rages around her. Nadia’s shrill mother, noisy father, rude husband and sullen teenage son are making life difficult for George, who is presented with the unenviable task of informing them that Nadia’s surgery keeps getting postponed. But when the constant strain of being surrounded by noise and stress gets too much for Nadia, George realises that he should have stepped in and protected his patient from her own family.Alex, meanwhile, is focusing his energies on a final push to revise for his medical board retakes – knowing that if he fails this time around, he’s out of the door. Everyone offers to help him revise, but Alex has a hard time letting go of his ego and accepting their aid. “Okay, Evil Spawn,” says Cristina, exasperated. “You can nurse your pride and keep on being a nurse, or you can pass your test and be a doctor. Up to you.” Will he get his act together in time to pass?Also in this episode, Meredith and Derek treat a cheerful family man whose personality changes after a fall; Cristina and Burke’s religious differencesare brought to the fore when a young heart transplant patient decides to give up on life; Bailey struggles with her pregnancy; and an upset Izzie throws herself into Christmas with a vengeance. In tonight’s second episode, Izzie treats a heart transplant patient who has a crush on her, and George and Addison disagree over a young hermaphrodite patient.
It looks like it’s going to be a good start to the year for Denny Duquette, who is waiting for a newheart, when Burke announces that a suitable donor heart has been found. Bailey is sent to Idaho to oversee the organ collection, while Burke stays in Seattle to await the new heart. Denny is delighted at the news – and is also pleased that his doctor is going to be Izzie, to whom he takes quite a shine. But when Bailey realises that the new heart may not be viable, Izzie faces the prospect of giving Denny the bad news.
George has some news of his own for Bex, a young patient who has been brought in with a lymph node tumour. It appears that the tumour is pressing on an ovary, but when Addison performs a biopsy, she realises that it is actually pressing on a testis: Bex has both male and female reproductive organs.
When her horrified parents ask that Bex be kept in the dark about it, George finds it impossible to stand by and let them lie to her. Also in this episode, Alex has a breakthrough when treating a man who ate a novel; Derek has a proposal for Meredith; and Cristina finds it difficult to abide by new working regulations. Over By a Reindeer’