Well, based on what I had heard about this episode from critics, I was expecting this first actual episode of Private Practice to be pretty bad. And I guess it wasn't horrible, but it was pretty boring and kind of grating. That is not something it can afford to be when it's on at the same time as the very entertaining Gossip Girl. If there's any justice in the world, at least half of PP's (PP, ha!) viewership should switch over to GG next week.
I found the opening scene where Chief Richard questioned Addison's decision to quit Seattle Grace and move to the holistic hippie practice to be oddly fitting. His comment, "This is not my Addison," ended up being pretty prophetic. The L.A. Addison was not my Addison either. My Addison was a hardass hotshot surgeon who, except for making the big mistake of cheating on her husband, had her shit together. She was not silly. She did not dance around naked. And that was ok! I liked her just the way she was. Why does she have to change herself in order to have her own TV show? Oh, and most annoying of all, why did she have to use the phrase "Addisoning me," three times in this episode?! Just shut up.
My problem with the other characters on this show is that (like Addison does now) they seem very much like TV characters and nothing much at all like actual people. They're mostly either whiny or kind of buttheadish. It takes talent to make me not particularly like Tim Daly, and PP did it, so I guess congratulations are in order? Those pink scrubs he was wearing certainly weren't helping. Merrin Dungey, you may have dodged a bullet here.
Parts of the episode were just kind of boring, but some parts were flat out ridiculous. Such as:
When someone's boyfriend dies, who immediately demands his sperm? Like I realize that's what they were in the process of dealing with when he died, but come on: if you're boyfriend leaves to go get some milk from the convenience store and gets killed in a robbery, the first thing you say when police show up at your door is not going to be, "I want the milk!" And then the whole thing got even more stupid when the ex-wife showed up and said she wanted the guy's sperm too. Did he have some kind of fantastic DNA code that I was unaware of? It sure didn't seem like it, seeing as he keeled over and died in his middle age. It was especially ridiculous because why would his wife, whom he left because she got older, want to have his kid? There are other men out there for crying out loud. How about you have a baby with someone who is actually nice to you? This guy was clearly not that fantastic.
And another really stupid thing was that the teen girl just happened to come to the clinic to deliver her baby on the same day that Addison showed up. Because who was she expecting to deliver her baby? No one knew Addison was going to even be there! Were they planning on letting Piz the receptionist take care of it? AND this whole thing got dumber too when it was revealed in an "oh, by the way..." type of moment that the teen's mother died in childbirth. Shouldn't a girl whose mother died in childbirth be delivering her baby in an actual hospital?! It didn't occur to anyone there might be some sort of problem? GAH!
And how dumb is it that it takes so long for them to get people from their clinic to the hospital? You'd think that if you were going to have a stroke, a doctor's office would be one of the better places to do it, but apparently you'd be very wrong.
All that said, I do still like Piz. He managed to get a moderately funny line: "You think I'm eye-candy. You have no respect for me or my midwifery skills!" I was curious, though, about who was watching the front desk while he was helping Addison deliver the baby. But, seriously, Chris Lowell, if you could find your way to Gossip Girl or Reaper or Chuck or Dirty Sexy Money or Ugly Betty or almost anything other than this tired show, I'd appreciate it.
Premiere Rating: 5 / 10
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