Every week, Grey’s Anatomy provides us with fun and wackiness, memorable characters and original storylines. But there’s always room for improvement. Perhaps this is blasphemy, but am I the only one weary of the Meredith-Dr. “McDreamy” storyline? Or of the camera following Meredith 75% of the time? I’d love to see Grey’s Anatomy shift the spotlight to those characters lurking in the shadows, the ones I desperately want to know more about.

Case in point: Izzie Stevens.

By now, we know everything about Meredith’s men and mommy issues. Just how intriguing is a character who goes into medicine trailing the footsteps of physician parents? Izzie, in contrast, grew up in a trailer park, poor and without role models. She modeled to pay her way through medical school, but that’s all we really know. What was it like for her to have such a difficult start in life? What is her family like? Does she have any close friends or relatives to depend on? Where did she find the strength to undertake one of the most rigorous, demanding jobs in the world? I’d love to see Izzy developed more, especially since the actress who portrays her, Katherine Heigl, is a true talent with a face designed to showcase emotion.

Now we move from the individual to relationships. Since the first moments of the pilot episode, Grey’s Anatomy has scrutinized every detail of the relationship between Meredith Gray and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd. Every episode is filled with meaningful looks, declarations of lust and love, and unspoken tension between the two. The show has even brought in Dr. Shepherd’s soon-to-be-or-maybe-not ex-wife to complicate things between the would-be lovers. Yawn.

While this storyline trudges its way through each episode, there is a relationship in the background full of sizzle and fire. Fans know what I mean: the bond between the curt Preston Burke and abrasive Cristina Yang. Icy doctors on the exterior, they have been revealed to possess souls of passion and tenderness, long hidden from view. Their scenes together crackle with chemistry. In the October 16th episode, message boards across the WWW lit up with the delight of seeing Dr. Burke comfort and cuddle Dr. Yang. It’s clear the fans know what works; when will the writers realize the same thing?