21 Years Ago, This Legendary Medical Drama Debuted on ABC

If you're an American prime time television series with two decades or more on the air, you're in rare company. Only eight shows in history have reached that milestone, with Grey's Anatomy being one of them.

Twenty-one years ago tonight, March 27, 2005, Grey's Anatomy premiered on ABC. Since then, the Shonda Rhimes-created medical drama has captured loyal viewership, which explains why the show is still is currently in the middle of its 22nd season.

'Grey's Anatomy' had an immediate impact

The pilot episode, "A Hard Day's Night," posted 16.25 million viewers, and the show continue earning strong ratings through its Season 1 finale ("Who's Zoomin' Who?"), which recorded over 22.2 million viewers. If you were unaware, yes, every episode is titled after a song.

In the ensuing 21 years, Grey's has introduced and eliminated countless major characters. Nine core show members appeared in the premiere episode.

• Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo)
• Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh)
• Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl)
• George O'Malley (T. R. Knight)
• Alex Karev (Justin Chambers)
• Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey)
• Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson)
• Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.)
• Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington)

Only Pompeo, Wilson and Pickens remain on Grey's as of last night's episode, which was the 477th in series history.

"What I remember about those first days was sort of knowing that we all felt like we didn’t know what we were doing, and that was exactly what we were playing," Pompeo told Shondaland in 2025. "I thought, 'Well, this is either going to work, or it isn’t, but we truly don’t really know what we’re doing. We’re playing a bunch of interns who don’t really know what we’re doing.' So, I knew I felt comfortable in our ability, and we were having a lot of fun."

A lasting--and ongoing--legacy

Since its debut, Grey's Anatomy has won dozens of major awards and spawned various spinoffs and crossover episodes.

It is currently the sixth-longest running scripted primetime TV series in U.S. history, trailing only The Simpsons, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order, Family Guy and NCIS.

"The number of women who have become doctors because of that show is magical to me. The number of people who’ve come to me and told me that they learned how to do CPR, or figured out that they were having a heart attack because of that show, is magical to me," Rhimes said in 2021.