Are Grey's Anatomy Fans Missing Anything By Skipping Grey's Anatomy: B-Team?

In 2005, a plucky showrunner named Shonda Rhimes captured lightning in a bottle with her breakout hit "Grey's Anatomy." The medical drama hooked viewers with its focus on a small team of upstart interns. With Season 19 of "Grey's Anatomy" on the horizon, it's been a long road since that first day of work in Seattle, and Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), now Chief of General Surgery, is the last remaining intern following Justin Chambers' departure after 16 seasons.

"Grey's Anatomy" has seen an outsize amount of drama and heartbreak since those halcyon early days. In 2018, the team behind "Grey's" launched the web series "Grey's Anatomy: B-Team" to shine the spotlight on life as a medical intern once again. Clocking in at less than five minutes an episode, "B-Team" stars Levi Schmitt (Jake Borelli), Dahlia Qadri (Sophia Taylor Ali), Taryn Helm (Jaicy Elliot), Sam Bello (Jeanine Mason), Vik Roy (Rushi Kota), and Casey Parker (Alex Blue Davis), plus appearances from Chief Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and other senior doctors (via IMDb).

"B-Team" pauses to take an underseen look at a corner of hospital life, but do "Grey's Anatomy" fans need to watch the web series?

"Grey's Anatomy: B-Team" didn't try to lure viewers with promises of medical miracles or steamy trysts. Instead, "B-Team" stands for the wholly unglamorous aspects of medicine, as Dr. Alex Karev helpfully explains: blood, bedpans, and barf.

For six short webisodes, the miniature spinoff served as a lighthearted reprieve from some of the heavier plotlines running parallel to "Grey's Anatomy." Still, "Grey's" fans could happily skip "B-Team" and follow along with the main series.

Though "B-Team" is a skippable entree into the "Grey's Anatomy" universe, the web series provides nostalgic déjà vu for viewers' who missed Dr. Bailey snapping orders at underlings. "It's also a throwback to the pilot episode of the whole series," said "B-Team" director Sarah Drew, who also played Dr. April Kepner on "Grey's Anatomy" (via The Pompeo Method). "That was all of our original interns' first day, so we got to kind of recreate a little bit of the feel of that, too." If the premise leans into "Grey's" nostalgia, so does the "B-Team" soundtrack. "We even use some of the music on these from the original pilot episode," said Drew. "It was fun to do some little throwbacks there."