Private Practice's Anatomy
Melissa Gandarinho
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There's always that one special show that gets everyone's attention. That one show that you count down those minutes anticipating its start. A show like Grey's Anatomy.
Meredith Grey had us all enthralled with her life and everything that revolved around it. And what happened to Grey, her life, and TV drama as we know it? It turned into another show.
Private Practice is a spin off of Grey's Anatomy going into none other than Dr. Addison Montgomery, McDreamy's ex wife's, life. No longer will we run to our TV's to see how McDreamy and Grey turn out, but rather we will go into the life of the woman who we despised on Grey's for a while and then began to feel sorry for.
The last episode of Grey's brought us to the soon to be show, Private Practice.
"At the invitation of her friend, fertility specialist Naomi Bennett, Addison leaves her job in Seattle and heads to Los Angeles to start a new job at Oceanside Wellness Group and to begin a new life. Not expecting Addison's arrival are Naomi, at the co-op wellness center, her ex husband, internist Sam Bennett, psychiatrist Violet Turner, pediatrician Cooper Freedman and alternative medicine guru Pete Wilder (who is convinced Addison is there because of their recent kiss)." (ABC.com)
What can Dr. Montgomery bring to us Grey fans? To start off, Dr. Montgomery is played by Kate Walsh; her counterpart best friend Dr. Naomi Bennett played by Audra McDonald (who is not the actress we were first introduced to). The season finale of Grey's Anatomy introduced Dr. Bennett as another woman, but complications took over and there was a change in actresses.
The ex husband of Naomi Bennett, Dr. Sam Bennett, is played by Taye Diggs. His partner, Dr. Pete Wilder, played by Tim Daly, is the man who we were introduced to in the final episode as a possible future love interest for Dr. Montgomery.
Other characters include, the shrink who slacks in love, Dr. Violet Turner played by Amy Brenneman; Turner's roommate, the sex addict pediatrician Dr. Cooper Freedman played by Paul Adelstein, Dr. Charlotte King the Chief of Staff played by KaDee Strickland and William 'Dell' Parker, played by Chris Lowell; and the receptionist and the boy who we recognized as Dr. Bennett's fantasy.
Already we have a phrase to explain every character, but will we have any McSomethings on the show? "I think that they're trying to steer away from all those nicknames to try and give us our own style on Private Practice. I always thought if they did go in that direction I could be McChocolatey," Taye Diggs stated on the Ellen DeGeneres show.
I guess we shouldn't expect any 'nicknames', but we should expect so much more. So far everything has been going smoothly. On an AOL Poll, 30% of voters said they will watch Private Practice on Wednesday's instead of Gossip Girl, Bionic Woman and Criminal Minds.
The series premiered on Wednesday, Sept. 26 at 9PM eastern time on ABC and had the highest ratings of the primetime slot.
When we left off, Addison was starting a new life with old friends. Now we are going to be taken into her life with these people. Was it like Grey's, or will they go with a different direction and regret their departure from the hit TV show that started it all?
How did Private Practice measure up?
"What happened? Beats me, except creator Shonda Rhimes seems to have forgotten what made Grey's so successful in the first place - blunt emotional honesty and a profound sense of the absurd." Reviewer Verne Gay stated.
The episode started off with Addison and the chief from Grey's Anatomy discussing her resignation. The cause for the resignation was the fact that Addison didn't get the position for Chief. The Seattle Grace appearance ended too soon. We didn't find out what the other members of Seattle Grace thought of Addison's departure, nor of their knowledge of it.
Many of our questions were left unanswered. There were too many plots and too much going on that it ended up becoming a blur and lacking any entertainment value. Private Practice isn't the same as Grey's and it doesn't feel like it will keep the viewers.
The end of the episode ended resolved, without any cliff hangers or problems. Everything was okay, back to normal, and with a happy ending. Was it worth the hour of watching? No…I could have waited to watch it online.
Private Practice doesn't seem to be the right medicine for those Grey fans, and only time will tell for how long it will try to be.
2008 Woodie Awards

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