Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-96.58.140.224-20140723205101/@comment-60.234.86.254-20161020094147

I believe the season premiere is set July 1 2007.

Seasons 1 - 3 take place over 1 year (2007 - 2008) they enter their second year July 1 2008 (Lexies first year) which runs for seasons 4 and 5.

After this things get a bit more simple. Season 6 is third year, 7 is fourth, 8 is fifth. The timelines for each season are skewed as some times one episode covers several months, other times several episodes cover a matter of days.

Season 7 skips big chunks of time at Callies recovery after the crash is shown over many weeks. There's also an episode in Season 7 or 8 that skips over most of winter.

Season 9 and 10 have shakey timelines as Merediths pregnancy seems to be quite an odd length. Season 10 kicks off right after Season 9. They're a few episodes in before they take their intern exam / April re-takes boards. I believe it's episode 3. An episode or two later it's Halloween so almost 4 months have passed since the boards but it's apparently only been 3 months since Heather died.

Season 11 is a relatively normal timeline until Derek dies. It actually gives us Merediths age for the first time. Maggie is stated at being 31 at the start of Season 11 (2014) having her born in 1983. Meredith tates that she was 5 years old when Maggie was born having her born around 1978 which puts Meredith as being 29 when the show starts (2007).

Now beyond here it becomes a mess again. Derek dies in March 2016, we then skip a LOT of time and have Ellis born in January 2017 (10 months after Meredith last saw Derek). She returns to Seattle in March 2017 a year after Derek died. In the finale we skip to July 1 2017 as in intern day - Steph and Jo are in their FINAL year as residents.

Come in to season 12, Meredith is attacked in episode 9 and spends at least 6 weeks in hospital. We've also had several episodes before this so for arguments sake let's say we're at around about October by the time episode 10 arrives. April discovers she is pregnant around this time and gives birth at full term in the finale.

Now enter Season 13. It picks up immediately after the end of season 12. Kyle has been dead for a matter of days. April has had the baby at what MUST be at least May 2017. By episode 3 Arizona has somehow returned from New York as Sofia and Callire are settled with new home and school despite just a few days earlier Arizona giving Callie permission to take Sofia. Cut to episode 4 and DeLuca is all healed up, Owen and Amy have found and completely furnished and decorated a new house. Stephanie and Jo are still residents.

Stills from episode 6 - Still residents. Behind the scenes photo posted today (October 20) by Camilla - still in light blue scrubs they're shooting episode 10. Meaning the entire first half of season 13 has to have taken place within a 6 week period to keep them as residents yet have Steph completely forget about Kyle, fogive Amelia, heal Deluca, heal April...