15 "Grey's Anatomy" Storylines That Would've Completely Changed The Show If They Happened

Derek and Addison were originally going to have a teenage daughter.

1. First, Bailey and George were originally going to be a central couple on Grey's Anatomy.

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Shonda Rhimes revealed that Bailey was originally supposed to have an "odd but hot" sexual relationship with George, while he was an intern.

2. Burke was originally going to have a wife and children. His storyline would've focused on feeling "trapped" in his marriage and wanting to leave his wife.

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Of course, Grey's made Burke single and had him fall in love with Cristina.

3. In addition to Derek leaving Addison, the duo was supposed to have a teenage daughter who was going to be the one to convince Derek to work at Seattle Grace.

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Shonda said that this would've been Derek's chance to make up for his past mistakes.

4. An original storyline idea involved Cristina falling in love with a patient, like Izzie did with Denny.

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5. In the early stages of development, Meredith and Burke were going to be a couple.

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Shonda originally wanted an interracial couple at the center of the show.

6. There was originally going to be a flashback episode dedicated to George's final moments before the bus crash that ultimately killed him.

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Shonda told EW, "I wanted to see his last day [alive] really badly. What I thought was interesting was the idea of, we now know it's the last day of someone's life, [so we’re] looking at it differently than [we] would any other time."

7. When planning Patrick Dempsey's exit from Grey's, one of the ideas involved Derek simply leaving Meredith and their kids.

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Shonda ultimately scrapped the idea, saying, "That was going to suggest that the love was not true, the thing we had said for 11 years was a lie and McDreamy wasn't McDreamy. For me, that was untenable."

8. During Season 2, Cristina was originally going to have an abortion instead of suffering an ectopic pregnancy.

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At the time, showing and talking about abortion on network TV was uncommon and Shonda didn't feel comfortable pushing back so early in their run.

9. After Lexie died, one of the ideas was to have Mark move to Los Angeles and rekindle his romance with Addison.

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Shonda personally loved this idea, however she and the writers ultimately decided that Lexie was his great love and he wouldn't be able to move on from her.

10. During the 300th episode, there was originally an idea to put all of the ghosts of Meredith's past in the OR gallery when she won the Harper Avery Award.

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The episode ended up included only Ellis Grey standing in the gallery.

11. Originally, Cristina's dad was going to be alive and would've been a major investor in Seattle Grace.

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12. Part of Shonda's original plan for the show was for Meredith to not have children.

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Eventually during Season 6, Shonda felt like Meredith was in a good place and started to introduce the idea of kids.

13. Callie was originally supposed to appear in the Season 14 finale, which was Arizona's final episode as a series regular.

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Sara Ramirez's filming schedule for Madam Secretary made it hard for her to return, but they did have Callie come back in a subtle way through some texts.

14. Before the show decided to put DeLuca and Meredith together, they almost had Meredith date a European scientist.

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Executive producer Krista Vernoff said that a casting leak caused them to scrap the new love interest entirely. The character was replaced by the character of Marie Cerone.

15. And finally, while the series would not be the same without Ellen Pompeo as Meredith, Lexie Grey could've become the central character if Ellen left the show.

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With the introduction of Lexie, Shonda gave ABC an "option" should the show need to continue without Ellen, however Shonda has said multiple times that there is no Grey's without Ellen.

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