KEY POINTS:
TV2 billed last night's line-up of season finales as the end of Beautiful Sundays. For some, sick of Meredith Grey's incessant, whining diatribes, Sunday night television may be about to improve markedly.
The absence of Ugly Betty from the schedule may make Sundays a little less beautiful -
or at least colourful - as the over-the-top dramedy recently began to redeem itself, having spent much of the second season focused on Betty and Henry's doomed love affair.
The victorious return of Wilhelmina to Mode last week saw Mark and Amanda reunited, and restored to their bitchy best, while Gio and Betty's burgeoning romance saw the series finally move on from the staid trials and tribulations of Henry, Betty and the pregnant Charlie.
That was, until last night, when Henry made his final play for Betty, proposing and promising her a writer's job at a magazine in Tucson. It would have been perfect, had the proposal not come just hours after Betty announced she was going to Rome with Gio.
Back at Mode, Daniel was in denial when a young French boy appeared claiming to be his son, but soon realised he was indeed Daniel jnr and pledged to be a better father than his own. Could this be the end of the self-destructive womaniser, replaced by a new sharing, caring Daniel?
A final shot of Betty leaving the Suarez home, packed suitcase in-hand, may have left viewers wondering which flight she would take, but there was no question that next season is poised to be a ripper with the ever-wily Willy back on board.
Over on Grey's, viewers were also left to ponder a few questions. Are Torres and Hahn set to become Grey's first resident lesbians? Is something brewing between George and Lexie? And, most pressingly, are the producers really going to subject us to yet another season of Meredith and Derek's dysfunctional relationship dramas?
Meredith may have made a breakthrough in the eleventh hour of this season, but as we have seen so many times before, one moment of clarity means nothing from the insidiously insipid Grey, who has fast replaced Carrie Bradshaw as the most annoying woman on television.
No doubt by next season, Meredith will have changed her mind again, leading to a fifth season of will-they-won't-they tedium.
Things were looking precarious for Grey's at the end of last year, as off-screen dramas between the cast garnered more attention than the on-screen stories, which were fast being rewritten to accommodate departing cast members and new inductees.
The result has been an altogether disappointing fourth season. With Burke gone, Christina's character has been downplayed, leaving the series to suffer without her cut-throat attitude and regular barbed comments. Last night's episode finally saw a glimmer of the feisty surgeon resurface, snapping at Hahn to shut up and let her work.
Likewise, the once-likeable Izzie Stevens has become increasingly irritating with every episode. Even Katherine Heigl, who plays Stevens, seems to think she is a lost cause, recently withdrawing from Emmy Award contention, announcing: "I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination."
The season has found small redemption in the form of George O'Malley, who has finally grown a spine and become a character of interest, and the smart and scathing Dr Hahn, who has provided the series' only moments of humour with her cutting quips towards Sloan.
But overall, Grey's has become a brooding and boring cycle of disappointments. Nothing ever works out for anyone in the world of Grey's. The question of whether Meredith and Derek will finally sort their act out and stay together merely begs another question: Does anyone care any more?
