“Private Practice” may finally be ready for prime time

I watched P.P. when it first premiered and followed Grey's, but I quickly fell off the wagon. I didn't mind Addison on Grey's, but I just don't think she's got the charisma to carry her own show. The storylines were never as riveting as Grey's and I agree with your assessment, "Addison became a whiny, man-hungry wimp." I just found that I didn't care at all about any of the characters. In order to fully get onboard with a show, you gotta care at least a teeny tiny bit as to what happens to these people.

While I loved Audra McDonald on Alias I couldn't stand her on P.P. She was always bitchy, bitter, and flat. Her character had zero depth and I think her past with Taye Diggs could have been expanded upon much more.

Is it just me or is the only emotion Amy Brenneman ever plays is neurotic? One of my new watch-over-and-over-again movies is JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB and the character she plays in that movie is almost exactly the same as her flustered neurotic character on P.P. I find myself always wanting to smack her and telling her to shut the hell up.

I hear P.P. is going back to it's original time slot in January. If Celebrity Rehab is over by then, I might tune in again.

I watch it regularly and I think the 2nd season is a huge improvment over the 1st, but while discussing with a friend why we don't like is as much as Grey's, among a few other reasons the main one is that we just don't really care about most of the characters.

Adison is great, I love Violet and Cooper and Charlotte is all right, but the other characters are just.... there.

I have no problem with disliking main characters on shows, but I have a problem enjoying watching people that I couldn't care less about.

More interesting character story lines, that's what they need.

...if L.A. is where Erica moved.  

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The heartache won't pass. 

I think your right when you say they need to focus more on the doctors than the unusual cases they come across. It seems as though each week they're trying to overindulge the audience with the patients. Who cares?! I wanna know what's going on in the lives of our Oceanside doctors. And yeah, most of the characters are kinda boring, but it has picked up a little. I don't go through withdrawal if I don't watch an episode. The shows that make me do that are my absolute favorites and Private Practice just doesn't cut it the way Grey's does.

I gave Season 2 of Private Practice a try, after loathing the inaugural season, because Addison's guest appearance on Grey's last season gave me hope that she'd return back to being that Addison.

I remember the first episode being really good--the best ever, I told a friend--and then subsequent episodes being really lackluster. A few episodes in, I couldn't stomach it anymore and just stopped watching (I tried watching with the sound off one week, but even that couldn't salvage the show).

Amy Brenneman is horribly underutilized. Audra McDonald and Chris Lowell's characters--both of whom I liked in the first season--had personality transplants in the second and I found to be insufferable. And while I'm sure they make for great eye candy, why Taye Diggs and Tim Daly's are on the show.

That said, hating it made my post-Brooke Smith boycott of all things Shonda Rhimes a little easier.

Addison is defintely getting back to her old self.  She's done many harsh but necessary things this season, like taking over the practice.

I actually like it better than Grey's because there is no Meredith.  At least now that there is also no same-sex couple on that.

ColetteLala, insteresting that you bring this up -- "While I loved Audra McDonald on Alias I couldn't stand her on P.P."

The actress who played Francie on Alias was Merrin Dungey and she did in fact play Naomi in the two-eppy GA that introduced Oceanside Wellness.  But after that "pilot" Merrin was replaced by Audra McDonald.  And while I am a huge fan of Audra's stage work (please come back to broadway), I think a mistake was made with the recasting of Naomi.  I felt that Merrin and Kate had more "straight girl bff chemistry" than Audra and Kate.

Honestly, I think this show would have worked much better from the beginning if it had been a women-centered, women-run, women-staffed clinic.  The men on the show are complete non-entities.  They can keep the desk dude as the one male who works there.

It also would have ended the crappy Addison transformation from awesome snarky surgeon to simpering man-hungry dud.  "I'm going to kiss you...with tongue."  Oh, okay.  That's about when I stopped watching the show round about the first episode.

Kate, Audra, Amy and KaDee working together and balancing their lives with their work would have been a much better show and also gotten the stories out of the clinic much more quickly as they dated people who didn't work in the next office. 

Also, of course, one of the women would have had to have been gay.  I vote for Brenneman.  

since I watched it. It used to be my favorite TV show before I found out I was gay.  I remember it was the first series that made me laugh out loud, like I had never before. I haven't seen it since then though. I've been busy watching the 5 seasons of The L Word. lol. I do miss seeing Kate Walsh a lot. I've always had a thing for red haired ladies.  

i love it, sometimes more than Grey's since it's less overly dramatic.

 i was however just lamenting the lack of lesbian storylines on the show. i agree with kineticstillnes! would LOVE for brenneman to go gay!!

 

So Private Practice doesn't have a lovable, sexable apparition like Grey's does but let's be honest... in what world is Kate Walsh not reason enough to watch a show.  If buying a cadillac would ensure her more airtime, I'd probably be at the dealership now.

I think Private Practice offers a different sort of story.  It's less about the learn-your-place-in-the-food-chain lessons we see in Grey's and more about the everyday struggles of professional life at a... private practice!  

The show has gotten better in its second season in developing the characters and adding plot twists to keep us coming back for more.  It's definitely not going to out-pace Grey's anytime soon, but that might be a good thing since Grey's might just implode with drama soon.

I thought all you Afterellen bloggers had forgotten about Kate Walsh.  I, however, cannot.  Especially after the rather delicious dream I had about her yesterday morning that made me inadvertantly reach out for my bed partner....in my sleep!  I was surprisingly happy to learn of her impending divorce (am I going to hell?) too, I know it's wrong and Kate, if you ever read this, please don't think less of me...you're just so beautiful it's good to know that you're back on the market!  But my heart does go out to her anyway, it's never easy when something you thought was so perfect doesn't work out, and there's always that sense of failure hovering at the edges of the hurt.  Yes it would seem that I am loving all things Kate Walsh at the moment and therefore have endured some of the lesser interesting episodes of Private Practice.  Oh, and if you've ever wandered if she's ever done a lesbian scene, youtube a movie called Inside Out with Nia Peeples.  Howzer!!  And good news is that P.P has been renewed for a third season.  I've always found it a good show and am glad that its getting the press that it deserves, and good on Kate Walsh too, she came from playing Drew Careys fat girlfriend to (at 41) heading up one of todays better drama series. Well Done!

1st - brooke smith should come over

2nd- she sould join charlottes practice

3rd- she should fall in love with charlotte and they should become the new couple - move over cooper!

 now that would be so so amazing ... weve already seen fractions of breaks in charlottes character just like we did with erica, i would love them together, or with addison, hell i just want brooke smith back on my tv!

I still watch it, for two reasons: Kate Walsh and KaDee Strickland.  They're always fighting like cats and dogs, and its kinda hot when two girls fight.  Addison's become more whiny than ever, and totally self-righteous, so its gotten a little harder to watch, but who am I to complain when they send me KaDee covered in nothing but chocolate???