My only excuse is that if you give me Patrick Dempsey in something that airs every week, I'm going to have to tune in. Long term crushes are the worst for that.

Course I'm the only person in the fandom who likes Derek and wants him slashed every which way - I do agree that there's some very creepy subtext in the het on the show. Sometimes more than just creepy.

Trivia note - Patrick and Jensen Ackles played lovers in a TV movie called Blonde about Marilyn Monroe. Just for an interesting degrees of separation thing with JDM.