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No name for the spin-off yet. And I have a feeling crossovers will be frequent and casual (ie. having Ben and Bailey both appear occasionally on the others' show, seeing the firefighters come in and out of the hospital sometimes, etc.).

14x11 - On the episode “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” – The stress of managing the hospital and coming to terms with Ben’s decision to become a Seattle firefighter pushes Bailey to her limits, on “Grey’s Anatomy,” THURSDAY, FEB. 1 (8:00-9:00 p.m. EST), on The ABC Television Network, streaming and on demand. Guest starring are Debbie Allen as Catherine Avery and Amy Landecker as Morgan. “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” was written by Elisabeth R. Finch and directed by Nicole Rubio.

Turns out the Alex-centric episode isn't quite Alex-centric. It sounds more like Grey's Anatomy: The High School Years, which could also be interesting. From TvLine: Regarding a certain major episode of Grey’s Anatomy that’s currently in production, I’ve learned that Alex won’t be the only character getting the origin treatment in the Ellen Pompeo-directed hour. Sources confirm that the episode will also shed light on Maggie’s teenage years.

Finally some new footage: Also, this is what we know about upcoming episodes: 14x10 - "Personal Jesus" - A young boy is admitted to Grey Sloan Memorial and his case has a profound impact on the doctors. Meanwhile, April is faced with a surprising patient, and Jo continues to deal with her estranged husband. Guest starring are Matthew Morrison as Paul Stadler, Bethany Joy Lenz as Jenny and Stefania Spampinato as Carina DeLuca. 14x11 is titled "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". I'm guessing there will be a 2-week break following 14x11 while the Olympics run on NBC.

Why do I have a feeling that Josh will be added as a cast member next season? They're doing more than double the amount of episodes as season 1, so at the very least I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of him.

I'd say they're going at least until season 16. Beyond that is anyone's guess. Ellen spoke a few times during the press for the 300th about being very happy with everything creatively; with Vernoff, it seems the actors have also been given more input into their stories. With Scandal ending, Modern Family likely gone after next season, and Shonda not developing further projects with ABC, they'll do whatever they can to keep Grey's running. If the Firefighter spinoff does well, I imagine more of those will be coming down the pipeline too. I could see them trying a re-titled / re-imagined Grey-Sloane series after Ellen decided to leave.

Nope, even the screener sent out for TCA literally just had 'MAIN TITLE' during the title sequence. People are expecting an announcement today, though. That subjective. Most critics agree that season 14 has been one of the best in years so far (it currently has a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the response from fans this year has been pretty unanimously great, too). And the cast has been raving about the upcoming episodes, naming them among their favourite of the series (Ellen, Justin, and Camilla all pointed to the upcoming episodes when asked about their favourites around the time they were celebrating the 300th).

The spin-off premieres with a two-hour double episode on March 22nd. Scandal will then move to 10pm and the spin-off will immediately follow Grey's.

I've seen the first episode of the firefighter spin-off... Meredith and Bailey both appear. There's a thread already in the pilot that will likely be what continues to intertwine the shows (beyond just Ben).

In what world is Grey's on borrowed time? It was ABC's top-rated series nearly every week that it aired in the fall, and it still sits among the 5 top-rated dramas on all of network television. That's not even considering the fact that, globally, it's one of the biggest shows in the world. ABC rakes in ridiculous amounts from syndication / international streaming deals alone. It's going to run until (at least) season 16.

Looks like Arizona definitely knows Paul somehow.

14x09 is called 'Four Seasons in One Day' according to SpoilerTV.

I can't wait for this! TVLine has learned exclusively that Ellen Pompeo is poised to step behind the camera later this season to direct another episode of the long-running ABC drama. Although the script is still being finalized and therefore is subject to change, sources tell TVLine that a portion of the episode will flash back to Alex’s (Justin Chambers) turbulent teenage years.

She was engaged to Matthew. They even made it to the altar.

In the new first-look at the (still untitled) spin-off, there's also a few Grey's tidbits for the back-half of the season. The interview is with Stacy Mckee. There's also a photo with Meredith the lead character from the spin-off, Andy Herrera, who is played by Jaina Lee Ortiz. It sounds like she's coming into Grey's for an episode. Grey’s has been hinting at Ben’s decision to change jobs, but how will the show really start to introduce this spin-off as we head into the back half of the season before its launch? Yes, they’ve definitely been setting the stage for Ben on Grey’s this season, and a little later this season, there will be an episode where we’ll actually get to meet one of the characters from the spin-off, just as a story within the episode. It’ll be Jaina’s character, Andy Herrera, and it’s going to be such a fun, fantastic introduction to her character. It will also showcase a really lovely story for Ben, where we get to just juxtapose his two worlds and see his reaction as he transitions from one world to the next. We’re actually shooting it right now. It’s going to be so good. How much will the show actually cross over with Grey’s? When Private Practice did it, it was more of a major event, whereas shows from the Chicago franchise do it more weekly, but smaller cameos. Will you lean more toward that? We’ll see. I don’t know yet. We just finished shooting the pilot, so we’ll see what the crossover potential is. There’s so much, which is so great. The worlds are so rich. Because they coexist, we have the option to do it just a little or a lot. We’re open to all of those possibilities. There’s just a tremendous amount of cross-pollination that could happen. I can’t tell you how many times I would walk into the Grey’s writers’ room and would pitch some crazy, amazing patient story, and everyone would be like, “Yeah, that’s great, Stacy, but all of the cool parts of that happens off-screen. We have to treat them once they get into the hospital.” Now, with this show, I get to do all of that off-screen stuff, so to me, the possibilities for cross-pollination are limitless, because what if we could just do it all if we want? When it was announced that Jason was moving to the spin-off, a lot of fans thought that would spell bad news for Ben and Bailey. Do you want to give fans some hope? I don’t think anyone should feel hopeless.

Vernoff hinted at a big episode coming up for her, I think it was to Entertainment Weekly.

I don't think Paul will be around for long. Based on how Vernoff has discussed the storyline, I really don't think they're going to try to get us to sympathize / warm up to his character. Even based just on how he appeared, it's quite clear that he's going to be a 'villain' in the sense that he did awful things to Jo and she's clearly shaken by his presence. It seems to me like they want to finally do the domestic abuse storyline justice, and it seems like everyone involved is quite proud of it (Camilla, Ellen, Justin, etc.). When asked their favorite moments of the series around the time the 300th aired, they said: ELLEN POMPEO (Meredith Grey) - We have an episode coming up about domestic violence, and it manages to have a lightness to it but also touch on the gravity that is domestic abuse. JUSTIN CHAMBERS (Alex Karev) - The powerful stuff that's coming up may be my favorite. CATERINA SCORSONE (Amelia Shepherd) - We have episodes coming up that deal with police bias and domestic violence. We need to talk about women and the vulnerability of women in our society. It's indicative of what our show has been about since the beginning.

I think Grey's has tackled a ton of tough storylines and done many of them pretty well. April losing her baby comes to mind, as does Cristina deciding to have an abortion. Owen's PTSD in season 5 was done really well, too. I also wouldn't say they used 'the first part of the season' on Megan and Riggs; they were around for 5 episodes, the season will run 24. It's nice that a regular character (Riggs) actually got a nice send-off, and Meghan's story totally set up what was to come in the season; she opened Owen up to being really happy again, and Riggs' exit freed up Meredith's storylines too. And it's not like nothing else happened; in that time we also got an Alex / Jo reunion, Amelia's tumor / the breakup with Owen, Meredith doing a Harper Avery winning surgery, the death of Harper Avery, Jackson's inheritance, Ben training to be a firefighter, April moving out of Jackson's apartment, Arizona's fling with Carina + Sophia moving home, DeLuca's romance with this intern, etc. They've set up tons of stories for the back half of the season. As for the interns, they've literally always been part of the series - season 4 (Lexi's class), season 9 (Jo's class), season 12 (DeLuca's class), etc. These interns, aside from Glasses and Sam, have barely had dialogue. They're not really taking up screentime. Plus, this is the smallest number of regulars the series has had in ages with Steph and Riggs both gone, and the only other recurring characters right now are Carina and Catherine Avery. Ben will be gone soon, too.

For all those claiming that there was behind-the-scenes drama with Henderson and Shonda, that was clearly not the case. He went to an event celebrating her and praised her endlessly in the interview, mentioning that he's open to returning in the future for a guest spot and saying again that they've discussed other work together.

I think we've seen her grow a lot even just in the last few episodes. She was great with Meredith in the surgery that won Mer the Harper Avery, and she took control when the intern dropped his glasses in the patient. Meredith acknowledged how good she was in episode 6, too. And to see her taking charge and deciding to divorce her husband is huge after years of running. I get that it isn't much, but she has been so sidelined for so long that all of her stuff this year feels refreshing and mature and full of growth.

What shocks me most is how many of my friends are rooting for a Jackson / Maggie hook-up, when to me they come off much more interesting as friends and siblings. To be honest, they're the only storyline that's falling totally flat for me this year in the midst of a lot of really interesting, or at least fun, storytelling. I love that Jo's husband showed up, and I really love that Jo is finally being treated like an actual lead member of the cast this year rather than just Alex's girlfriend. It's been great to see her thrive professionally but still remain quirky and fun. AND they actually give her scenes with Alex! I got chills when her husband showed up, even though I sort of felt it coming. Based on what Ellen, Camila, and Justin have said, the upcoming storyline is going to be really powerful. The premise tonight was cheesy but it reminded me of how effortlessly they pulled this type of thing off early in the show. It reminded me a bit of the 'toxic blood' episode, where the storyline was a bit ridiculous but it worked well to connect all the stories. It's great to see Meredith getting a medical cliffhanger rather than a romantic one. And I love that she's the calm during the storm these days. It's interesting to explore 'what comes next' after such a big accomplishment, which on many shows would have been a series-ending achievement. I'm enjoying how they're writing the interns relatively light, and to be honest I've already warmed up to Glasses. It's nice seeing medicine through young eyes, again, and I enjoyed how he played off Meredith (it felt a lot like watching George in surgery with Burke in the early years). I thought the final few moments were pulled off really well, with Alex getting ready to inject the kid, Jo running to stop him, Meredith getting glasses to give blood, etc.

Grey's was up week-to-week to a 1.9 and a season-high 8.13M viewers. It was ABC's highest-rated series of the week in the demo and the 2nd highest-rated drama on broadcast this week behind only This is Us. It was ahead of Empire, but The Good Doctor was off this week. Scandal did a 1.1 and HTGAWM an 0.9.

@ElectricBoogaloo The timeline is definitely sped up from reality, but they mentioned that 2 weeks had passed since the last episode. So, Jackson gave her the money a week after they first discussed it, and this was one week after that. And Meredith was informed of her nomination 2 weeks ago. In season 10, Cristina was nominated for the Harper Avery in episode 19 and the ceremony was in episode 20.

I thought it was fantastically done. Having watched the show since I was in 8th grade and being 26-years-old now, it really did feel like a crazy trip looking back on everything. It's cheesy, but I've grown up with these characters, and my life has changed along with theirs over the years. I can track each season of the series by what was going on with my life, where I was living, who I was with, etc. I liked that they didn't just do a nostalgia-filled episode but also continued to push the plot forward, which seems to be the general thesis of this season: appreciating & understanding our past, but always moving ahead. In particular, I loved Alex talking to Jo about Izzie. The life he imagined for her was so spot-on and had me tearing up. Especially the bit about Christmas lights being up all year 'round. I was worried that Izzie would get shit on here, but I actually finally feel a sense of closure with her character after last night. I also love that Jo was mature enough to tell Alex that he should call Izzie if he really wanted to. Arizona doing an impression of Mark was also spot-on. I could hear Mark saying it. It was a nice touch to have the photo of Callie, Mark, Arizona, and Sophia at the end. Baily and Weber reminiscing about the original interns was great, too. Meredith winning the award and seeing Ellis gave me chills. I just rewatched season 1 over the last week, and it's amazing to see how far Meredith has come. Jackson's speech was obviously a bit on-the-nose but it summed up Meredith Grey and the series so well. She really has become a superhero for so many girls watching, and I love that they've decided to focus on really keeping her mature and fun and focused on medicine this year. The ending with just her and Alex and a phone call from Cristina was brilliant. Grey's is finally feel-good again rather than just depressing as it has been for much of the last few seasons. It's not perfect, but it never has been and it doesn't need to be.

The media blitz really has begun.