Warning: spoilers ahead for the two-part series premiere of Station 19 on ABC.
The long-awaited firefighter spinoff of Grey's Anatomy finally hit the airwaves with its series premiere on March 22. Station 19 features former Grey's Anatomy regular Jason George as a major character on the firefighting team, and the series premiere featured appearances from Meredith Grey and Miranda Bailey when the Station 19 crew ended up at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. On the one hand, it was entirely possible that the quick crossover between the shows in the first hour of the two-part premiere was simply part of the process of launching a spinoff, and we couldn't expect to see other Grey's faces on Station 19 or vice versa moving forward. Fortunately, Station 19 creator Stacy McKee revealed how the two shows will handle crossovers:
There will definitely be crossovers throughout the season, some bigger, and some smaller. It's important for me that the main characters cross-pollinate between the two shows. Ben Warren is still appearing on Grey's Anatomy, and there's some characters coming over from Grey's.
Station 19 and Grey's Anatomy won't operate entirely independently of one another, which should come as a relief to folks who plan on tuning into both. Shondaland shows generally require a fair amount of suspension of disbelief, but it might have been too much for viewers to accept the characters from the two shows never crossing paths when they're literally so close to each other in Seattle. Grey's Anatomy has gone through plenty of crises over the years requiring the help of firefighters, and the firefighters of Station 19 already seem prone to injury in the line of duty that could wind them up in the hospital. It wouldn't make much sense if the two shows didn't feature crossovers, even if they're small. Stacy McKee's comments to Deadline should make for good news for any wondering about the two shows' connection.
The characters most likely to pop up on Station 19 are probably Bailey and Meredith. Ben and Bailey's marriage managed to survive his somewhat bonkers decision to switch from his career as a skilled surgeon to a newbie firefighter, and they still have their son. Even if Station 19 isn't going to spend a ton of time focusing on Ben's personal life, Bailey should still be on the periphery. Hopefully we can count on Chandra Wilson showing up on a semi-regular basis, for cameos at the very least.
Meredith doesn't have quite as many obvious reasons to interact with the Station 19 folks, but she did form a strong connection to Andy when they interacted in the series' pilot. She's also the leading lady on the Shondaland series that started it all on ABC, and what better way to continue building buzz for a new series than by crossing Meredith over to chat with/perform surgery on the characters of Station 19? Besides, if Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital continues its trend of dealing with fires, shootouts, and/or explosions, the various firefighters of Station 19 will have reason to drop by. The crossovers -- large and small -- should be worth looking forward to as the two shows progress.
You can catch new episodes of Station 19 on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC. Grey's Anatomy continues to air on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET. For your other viewing options, don't forget to take a look at our midseason TV premiere guide and our 2018 Netflix premiere schedule. To discover the network shows that haven't been too lucky over the past season, check out all the series to get the axe on our rundown of TV cancellations and renewals.
