Greys Anatomy put itself on life support after killing McDreamy: Time to pull the plug?

“Grey’s Anatomy” has a heart that, somehow, someway, is still beating.But almost 21 seasons later, it may be time to pull the plug on one of the most important television shows in pop culture history.“Grey’s Anatomy” premiered on ABC in 2005 and was a TV juggernaut for over a decade.

Fans fell in love with the crazy medical stories and the epic romances between Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Patrick Dempsey), Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Arizona (Jessica Capshaw), Mark (Eric Dane), Lexie (Chyler Leigh) and more.But the show hasn’t been the same for a long, long time.Why is that?“Grey’s” put itself into a proverbial coma when it lost some of the beloved characters that were keeping fans engaged week after week.In the span of three seasons, Mark and Lexie died, Christina (Sandra Oh) left, and then Derek died.

Flash forward to today and only three original cast members (Pomeo, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr.) are starring in Season 21.The rest of the cast features either later additions like Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) and Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd), who are still “Grey’s” staples, or fresh faces that the audience hasn’t cared enough about to love, since they miss the old guard.Even Lynette Rice, a “Deadline” editor and reporter who wrote the book “How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy,” an unauthorized oral history of the show, knows “Grey’s” is not the same.“Grey’s Anatomy isn’t the powerhouse it used to be,” Rice exclusively told The Post, adding, “but that doesn’t make it any less valuable to ABC.”Rice pointed out that the show streams on Netflix, which has brought in a whole new generation of viewers.

Still, there’s a lack of love for the current era of the show.And we can’t live in the past forever.

“It makes me a little sad that ABC is squeezing every last whipple out of this aging franchise, but the alternative is seeing the death of broadcast TV,” Rice also said.“A...