Grey’s Anatomy fans can continue to rest easy for now.
The show is still returning for a 17th season on ABC, and president Karey Burke says the show “will live as long as [Ellen Pompeo] is interested in playing Meredith Grey.”
But that doesn’t mean some things aren’t changing. The Grey’s spinoff Station 19 is now taking over the 8 p.m. timeslot, with Grey’s moving to 9 p.m. Grey’s showrunner Krista Vernoff is now also running Station 19, allowing the two shows to be much more interconnected, starting with a two-hour crossover event to launch Station 19‘s third season on January 23.
“[Station 19] is more tied to Grey’s than it has been in the past,” Burke confirmed. “You’ll start to see relationships emerge between the characters that exist in the Grey’s world and the Station 19 world in really organic ways.”
Burke said she’s really impressed with what Vernoff and her team have accomplished, and explained that there will be four “tentpole events” throughout the spring that will revolve around big emergencies that would naturally start with first responders and then end up at the hospital, creating two-hour crossover blocks.
This all starts with the follow-up to Grey’s Anatomy‘s midseason finale, in which a car drove into Joe’s bar, trapping everyone inside, including both Station 19 and Grey’s characters. The emergency will bring most of Station 19 to the scene, followed by a trip to Grey Sloane Memorial in the aftermath.
During her TCA appearance, Burke also confirmed that another Bachelor spinoff is coming, and said she still stands behind former White House press secretary Sean Spicer participating in the latest season of Dancing With the Stars.
“It’s a ballroom dancing show. It is not a political show, it is a ballroom dancing show, and I think the contestants came with the spirit of that. And ultimately this is a show in which the audience votes, and the audience voted, and ultimately the right person won the show,” she said.
