In a sterile white corridor of Seattle Grace Hospital, three surgeons are slipping
into tissue-papery garments called ''trauma gowns'' — which can only mean that there's
serious business to attend to. They are seconds away from greeting an
ambulance carrying a severely messed-up accident victim. But instead of silently concentrating
to hone their focus or discussing ER strategy among themselves, the doctors of ABC's
Grey's Anatomy are doing what they do best: bantering about their sex lives.

''You and O'Malley, huh?'' says smart-alecky intern Alex Karev (Justin Chambers),
needling badass orthopedist Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) as he helps her tie her
gown. ''How'd that happen?''

''I don't know,'' she snaps back. ''You're a surgeon — how'd that happen?''

But Alex's no-nonsense supervisor, Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), is having none
of it as she joins them mid-rush toward the emergency entrance. ''She's a resident,''
she scolds Alex. ''She outranks you. You don't ask her personal questions.'' It's a line
that would sound perfectly reasonable on any other doctor drama — but on Grey's
Anatomy, it's a damn funny thing to say. After wrapping the scene, Wilson smiles
and cracks, ''Not talking about our personal lives? At Seattle Grace? Come on.''

Playing doctor with each other (and gossiping about it incessantly) actually trumps
being doctors for this staff. And the hot docs' bedside manners have made the third
season of Grey's Anatomy the most anticipated series return of the fall. Of course, it's
not just the 20 million fans who are breathlessly awaiting the Sept. 21 premiere: Now
that the hospital serial has taken up residence on Thursdays opposite CBS' forensics
phenom CSI, ABC execs are hoping for their first seriously competitive lineup on that
night since 1978's Barney Miller/Soap combo. ''This is the golden age of broadcast
drama, and Grey's is clearly a centerpiece of that,'' says ABC Entertainment president
Stephen McPherson. ''This is a chance to grow our schedule. There's a lot of
doomsday talk of 'Oh, my God, two or three hit shows against each other!' But we're
hoping there's plenty of room for everyone.''

In other words, the stakes couldn't be higher if, say, a patient showed up with an
unexploded bomb in his chest.

The good news is the Seattle Grace crew is great at performing under pressure.
Coming off last season's Super Bowl-fueled high (the postgame episode lured 38
million viewers), Grey's soon found itself surpassing the gals of Wisteria Lane in
numbers and watercooler worthiness. ''We're at a fork in the road,'' says Dr.
McDreamy himself (or, as his friends call him, Patrick Dempsey). ''People are aware
of what's happened to other shows [in their sophomore seasons] and what the traps
can be. As long as we stay true to the essence of the first season, the show will have a
strong place in history. Otherwise, we're just a flash in the pan.''

The flash is burning pretty brightly these days, what with 11 Emmy nominations this
year (and one win for Outstanding Casting), a recent round of bonuses for series
regulars (a reported $200,000 each), and a new pilot deal for creator Shonda
Rhimes. (It's a drama, potentially for next year, about female journalists, featuring
Jeffrey Dean Morgan — a.k.a. Denny.) Not to mention the less obvious signs that the
show has arrived — like some promotional swag Chambers has displayed in his
trailer: ''I think the fact that we're on a bumper sticker is a sign of the times.'' There's
also the fan obsession with Grey's McLanguage — which started with Dr. Derek
Shepherd's nickname, McDreamy. ''It's really amazing that this thing that we came up
with while shooting the pilot, just because Patrick Dempsey is so adorable, stuck,''
Rhimes marvels. Almost as popular as the McLanguage is Bailey's pet name for
her privates. ''When I turned on the morning shows the day after the Super Bowl
episode and everyone was using the word va-jay-jay, '' Rhimes says, ''that was
really surreal.''

The entire experience of being on the hit show of the moment still feels a bit surreal
to the cast. ''When I got invited on Oprah I thought, Whoa, okay, this is big,'' says
Ellen Pompeo, who plays angsty intern (and McDreamy's forbidden squeeze)
Meredith Grey. ''I feel really lucky — all of us realize how difficult it is to get the stars
to align.'' Sandra Oh — who has scored two Emmy nominations for her portrayal of
prickly Cristina Yang — is just happy to see everyone's long hours paying off. ''It's a
hard show to shoot,'' she says. ''So it's extremely satisfying when a large, really
diverse audience is enjoying the show.''

Starring on a TV phenomenon often translates to more big-screen opportunities, but
not everyone has been able to capitalize on their Grey's cachet. Dempsey plays Hilary
Swank's husband in the upcoming drama Freedom Writers (which he worked into
his Grey's shooting schedule last season) and stars as a divorce lawyer romancing
Amy Adams' banished princess in Disney's Enchanted (which he filmed on his
summer hiatus). Pompeo, however, opted to spend her summer doing Grey's
publicity abroad instead of shooting a film in the three-month break (''I mean, I can
exhaust myself anytime''). Kate Walsh, who plays Derek's adulterous wife, Addison,
had to drop out of the Stephen King adaptation 1408 because of scheduling conflicts
with her day job. And Isaiah Washington has encountered a different roadblock: ''I
don't get calls for roles in movies because they think I'm too expensive now,'' says the
actor, who plays fussy-yet-sexy surgeon Preston Burke. ''They didn't want to pay me
for the first 35 films I did, and now they want to pay me $75 a week because they think
I can afford it.''

It was 7 a.m. on Tuesday, May 16 — the day after part 2 of last season's finale had
aired — when the phone rang at Grey's writer Tony Phelan's Pasadena home. A
female voice said, ''Is this Tony Phelan? The Tony Phelan who writes Grey's
Anatomy?'' Figuring it was someone from ABC calling to congratulate him on good
ratings for the episode (which he and his wife, Joan Rater, had co-written with
Rhimes), he said yes. Then the caller exclaimed, ''How could you kill Denny?'' Turns
out it was an enterprising fan phoning from New Jersey. ''It just shows you how
invested people are,'' Phelan says, then adds, ''We're not listed anymore.''

Grey's viewers are nothing if not passionate, especially about the tortured love
triangle between Meredith, Derek, and sultry neonatal surgeon Addison. Well, love
square — if you count Meredith's new beau, Finn ''McVet'' Dandridge (Chris
O'Donnell). Make that a pentagon, if you figure in the guy Addison cheated with, Dr.
''McSteamy'' (actor Eric Dane, who probably has a full character name, but
whatever). Actually, it's a hexagon if you include sweet intern George O'Malley (T.R.
Knight), who was head over heels for Meredith before he met Callie. (Okay, that
would be a heptagon.) At any rate, it's very complicated — and audiences can't get
enough. ''People always ask me who I'm gonna pick,'' Dempsey says. ''It's the thrill
of the chase.''

That hot pursuit culminated in a sexy hospital romp for Derek and Meredith in the
May finale, which ended with Meredith facing a choice between McDreamy and
McVet. Rhimes has a strict blackout policy about upcoming story lines, but here's
what we can piece together about season 3: The premiere will ''pick up right where
we left off, hours afterwards,'' Dempsey says. Even better: ''There's definitely a
resolution to the love triangle,'' hints Walsh. Considering that O'Donnell hasn't signed on as a series regular — he's in at least a few episodes, but producers won't
say how many — it seems any role McVet plays in Meredith's life will be strictly
recurring. ''We left a mess last season, and we gotta clean it up,'' adds Wilson.
''It has no choice but to be pretty dirty.''

Odds are good that no one will live happily ever after — especially with rumors that
Dane's McSteamy will return this season. But one surprising development has been
the growth of audience affection for Addison. She arrived from New York as a black-
clad adulteress who cuckolded the resident heartthrob and had the nerve to want
him back, but thanks to Walsh's sympathetic performance, fans are now almost as
likely to root for her as they are for Meredith. ''The writers could've made me
just hateable,'' Walsh says. ''And they did a great job of humanizing Addison.''

Even the couplings outside of the Meredith-McDreamy orbit have set fans aflutter —
most notably, the unlikely duo of Burke and Yang. They'll face their own battle this
season as he struggles to recover full use of his hand after being shot in the finale —
while Yang is forced to play the supportive girlfriend. And George, no doubt, will
continue to be adorably befuddled in his new romance with Callie. Ramirez admits
to crushing on her character's boyfriend even before joining the show. ''To watch
him be so in love with Meredith...,'' she sighs dreamily. ''You want a guy to be that in
love with you.'' George and Meredith's weak-moment hookup (that ended with her
crying jag) only seemed to bolster sympathy among his devoted fan base. ''George
always gets the short end of the stick,'' Knight says. ''But thank God I didn't pine for
her for years.'' With Ramirez back as a regular this season, viewers will likely learn
more about George's strong-willed sweetie. ''Why is she living in the basement?''
asks Ramirez. ''I'm just as anxious to find out as everybody else.''

Of course, the most literally ill-fated couple at Seattle Grace turned out to be Izzie
Stevens (Katherine Heigl) and heart-transplant candidate Denny Duquette (Morgan).
The rule-breaking romance resulted in Izzie risking her job to get Denny a new
ticker...and his death in the season finale. So what will become of Dr. Stevens now?

Heigl is definitely still at work, so Izzie must remain connected to Seattle Grace in
some capacity — even though she quit the surgical residency program at the end
of last season. ''I'm not sure how they plan to proceed, but I would say that this is
not her vocation,'' Heigl speculates. ''She's so emotionally connected to patients, I
can see her doing a Doctors Without Borders kind of thing, or a free clinic.''

Although the finer points of what to expect this season remain a mystery, we know
that in addition to O'Donnell, we'll see guest-star stints from Dynasty diva Diahann
Carroll, Little Miss Sunshine moppet Abigail Breslin, and character actor Fred Ward
(Sweet Home Alabama) in the first five episodes. The biggest Grey's cliff-hanger of all,
however, will be resolved in the weekly ratings. How will the show fare against CBS'
heaviest hitter, CSI? ABC has faith in Grey's fever-pitch momentum. ''As people get
more and more engaged in these characters, shows tend to build,'' McPherson says.
''It reached a whole new level [last season]. We wanted to build it even more.'' And
Rhimes is up to the challenge, though she's still floored by her little doctor drama's
success. ''When people say it's the big show, it still feels impossible,'' she says. ''It's
sort of like being the kid in the back of the room who eats their own hair — when
you look at the popular kids, you never think you could be one of them.''

We're guessing that if any of these folks feel the urge to eat their own hair, it's only
because it looks so damn delicious. The Seattle Grace staff may just be able to
vanquish those formidable forensic scientists with their collective McDreaminess —
and their steamy sex scenes. Right, Ellen? ''It's awkward with Patrick because he's
like my brother,'' Pompeo says. ''As soon as the camera is off, I'm like, 'Is your hand
on my butt?' But there are millions of girls who have been waiting for this, so I feel
an obligation to the fans.'' Oh, the sacrifices.