Among all the questions that viewers of “Anatomy of Passion” asked after the season 18 finale, there was a constant interest in how long Meredith and star Ellen Pompeo would be around, and whether the series could survive without a namesake surgeon. Speaking of which, Pompeo herself hinted that the drama could go on without her, and now we know that season 19 will test that idea as the actress landed her first new TV role in almost two decades. So don’t expect Meredith to return to Seattle nearly as often this fall.
In particular, according to Deadline, Ellen Pompeo will appear in only eight episodes of the 19th season. It is expected that there will be about 22 episodes in the new season, although this has not yet been confirmed. However, fans will still hear her voice as the narrator in every episode, and she still retains her role as executive producer. So it looks like she’s not getting ready for a full exit yet.
This huge update comes at a time when “Anatomy of Passion” is starting production on new episodes, so it’s not entirely clear if the medical drama will start with or without Ellen Pompeo on screen. Of course, the lives of enough characters need to be updated so that her absence is not something out of the ordinary, but considering that the finale confirmed that Meredith will not move to Minnesota with a full stop, and that she really will stay here. With Gray Sloan’s memorial as his interim chief of surgery, it may be strange that the top boss will go completely unnoticed when the show returns.
However, fans of “Anatomy of Passion” may have been prepared for this day to arrive one day. While Meredith never took mega vacations during previous seasons of the ABC hit, viewers have seen less of Pompeo’s presence in recent years, whether because her character was in a completely different place or because she was dating dead people in a covid coma. But it can still be a shock to see her little in this capacity, having seen more of her on another platform.
What is Ellen Pompeo’s new streaming show?
As hard as it may be to believe that Ellen Pompeo opted for another TV show that has nothing to do with Shonda Rhimes’ “Anatomy of the Kingdom of Passion,” the actress has signed a contract for the lead role and executive producer credit for a limited Hulu series inspired by a strange 2019 news story that echoes the horror film “Orphan”. Currently, the project has no name.
The case in question concerned Christine Barnett, who was supposed to be portrayed by Pompeo, and her ex-husband Michael Barnett, accused of negligent parenting after he allegedly abandoned his adopted daughter Natalia in an apartment and then moved to Canada. The Barnetts claimed that they had previously believed that they adopted Natalia when she was six years old, but in fact the woman was a mentally unstable adult with a rare form of dwarfism that deceived them.
“Anatomy of Passion” is currently in production for the 19th season, which fans will be able to watch when it debuts on ABC on Thursday, October 6, at 21:00, after the premiere of the 6th season of “Station 19”, which gave several stars a little bit of advancement. Go to our TV premiere schedule for 2022 to find out what else is coming.
