The primary thing that Grey’s Anatomy spin-off Private Practice (ABC, Wednesdays, 9 p.m.) has going for it is that it lacks the grating voice-over of Grey’s star Ellen Pompeo. The characters on Practice are just as neurotic, whiny and self-absorbed as those on Grey’s, but at least the audience isn’t subjected to flowery, ponderous narration about all of it. Also, as of yet there is no one nicknamed McAnything, which is another marked improvement.
In almost every other way, though, Practice is as drippy, cloying and unpleasant as its parent show, a continuation of the gross, faux-female-empowerment franchise that creator Shonda Rhimes started with Grey’s, which has to be the worst incredibly successful show on TV today. Practice follows McDreamy’s ex, Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), as she moves from the overcast environs of Seattle to sunny LA, and from the fast-paced world of an urban hospital to the much more laid-back setting of a small clinic that caters to patients seeking more personalized care.
Another mark in the show’s relative favor is its depiction of this different sort of medicine; like Grey’s, most successful medical shows are set in big-city hospitals, and the alternative approach should allow Rhimes & Co. to tell different kinds of medical stories than they do on their other show. Unfortunately, the first episode (following a set-up on one of last season’s installments of Grey’s) has as one of its major storylines a trip to the local hospital, and introduces KaDee Strickland as the chief of staff there, who will be a foil for the touchy-feely cast of characters at the Oceanside Wellness Group.
So Rhimes ends up portraying the same sort of high-stakes, overwrought medical drama that she has on Grey’s—another main storyline in the first episode finds Addison’s first baby-delivery in the cozy clinic turning into a life-or-death emergency complete with risky surgery. Almost any of the new characters on Practice—except maybe for Tim Daly’s alternative-medicine practitioner—would fit in on Grey’s, and that’s not meant as a compliment. Everyone bickers and banters weakly about their relationships and has existential crises over how to treat patients, and then looks mournful as plaintive indie rock plays on the soundtrack, available soon at a Starbucks near you.
Walsh has been one of the less-annoying presences on Grey’s, and she’s a much more appealing protagonist than Ellen Pompeo’s squinty, self-centered Meredith Grey, but Rhimes finds a way to humiliate and objectify her right in the show’s second scene, after revealing every other major character as a neurotic mess in flashes as Addison describes them to one of her soon-to-be-former colleagues. Once Addison makes it to LA, we first glimpse her in a towel, hair wet from a shower, as she dances goofily around her house to some kicky pop song. Teasing viewers with the possibility that the towel might come off at any moment, Rhimes finally has Addison disrobe in front of her window, only to be spotted by next-door neighbor Sam Bennett (Taye Diggs), coincidentally another doctor in her new practice.
This kind of condescending, sub-Ally McBeal bullshit infuses Practice to an even greater degree than it does Grey’s; nearly as infuriating is Amy Brenneman’s psychiatrist character’s inability to get a handle on her own love life. People like Daly, Brenneman, Diggs and Walsh herself are experienced TV actors who deserve far better showcases for their talents, but Rhimes’ eager audience will probably tune in eagerly to be pandered to for an extra hour each week.
Private Practice * 1/2