'Grey's Anatomy' season 17 premiere: Debbie Allen says fans will be blown away

Debbie Allen says the seventeenth season of "Grey's Anatomy" won't hold back any punches when it returns tonight for its two-hour premiere.

Allen, who stars as Dr. Catherine Fox on the show, told ABC Audio that fans should expect the unexpected on the heart-stopping return of the series.

"'Grey's Anatomy' season 17 is going to blow the audience and the fans away," she said. "That's all I can tell you."

Although Allen, who also serves as one of the show's directors, is not offering any details on what fans will see, she does offer a brief explanation as to why you "don't [want to] miss it."

"Everybody's in it," she revealed. "You're going to see things you don't think you're going to see."

The season 17 premiere will be a crossover event with "Grey's Anatomy" and "Station 19," starting at 8|7c on ABC. It will reportedly be set weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Grey's" showrunner Krista Vernoff previously spoke about why the ABC medical drama will touch on the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There's no way to be a long-running medical show and not do the medical story of our lifetimes," she shared during the Television Academy's "Quaranstreaming: Comfort TV That Keeps Us Going" panel in July.

After speaking will real doctors and medical professionals on the front lines, she said she felt the the show had "an opportunity and a responsibility to tell some of those stories."

The new season of "Grey's Anatomy" kicks off tonight with a two-hour premiere starting at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

Check out a behind-the-scenes tour of the show's set from Kelly McCreary, who stars as Dr. Maggie Pierce in the ABC hospital drama, here.