It's official: Grey's Anatomy has jumped the shark

After the stunt in which Grey apparently drowned while rescuing people from a ferry boat accident, she "survived" on Thursday Night's episode.

Wow! It's a miracle! It's amazing!

It's a bunch of crock. Thursday's episode was about as predictable as Mayor Daley winning next Tuesday's election. We all knew they weren't going to kill off the lead character of a TV show. They could have come up with something better than this.

And further conformation of this shark jump comes from the guys who invented the phrase. Jon Hein and the boys at Jump The Shark report that the Death stunt got the most votes on the Grey's Anatomy page, "jumping" over the "Never Jumped" category, which now is in second place.

Add to that off-screen controversies involving Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey, and volia! You have the next Designing Women or Laverne & Shirley, two shows notorious for off-screen battles (and as a result, the quality of the programs suffered on-screen.)

And TV critics like Diane Werts of Newsday are getting fed up as well.

But what's that you say? Thursday's episode posted the highest ratings for any scripted show this season. So? People aren't necessarily flocking over to Entertainment Tonight to check out Jann Carl's hot body (ha, ha) these days, are they? (It has something to do with one person named Anna and another named Britney.)

It's like that TV commercial for McDonald's, where people do stupid stuff because they didn't eat that new honey mustard wrap. It seems the Grey's Anatomy writing staff missed snack time.

So start writing the obituaries for Grey's people. It's all downhill from here. It's only a matter of time before the Cook County Board takes over the writing staff, and the show will slide even further. Or has that happened already? I hear that next week's episode of Grey's Anatomy is written by Todd Stroger.