Salon.com > Private Practice

“Private Practice”: How many adorable children must die?

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:01:00 +0000

How many adorable, saucer-eyed children are going to have to suffer and die and get torn from Mommy's arms before this thing is through? That's what I ask myself every time I find myself watching "Private Practice" (10 p.m. Thursdays on ABC), the flashier, cheesier, stupider cousin of "Grey's Anatomy" that serves up a big, fat slice of Parental Nightmare Porn every week -- you know, for the masochist that lives deep inside every last one of us.

Sure, it starts out innocently enough. "Addy" (Addison, played by Kate Walsh) is dashing around the medical offices where she works, and she bumps into some snag: the practice's budget is in the red or someone forgot to make more coffee in the break room or someone's wife stopped by to call her a whore. Addy doesn't take kindly to such stressors – you'll recall that her character moved from Seattle Grace (on "Grey's") down to sunny L.A. for a change of scenery, and so Shonda Rhimes could build a whole new show around a manic, eye-rolling, sexually compulsive redhead who's also – you guessed it – the best gynecological surgeon anywhere in the known universe.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:00:00 +0000

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are highly suggestible and those who remain relatively impervious to outside influences.

Personally, I'm an emotional amoeba, a transparent blob of mush, nothing but permeable boundaries with fluidy goo in the middle. Set the amoeba down in front of some speakers playing sad music and the amoeba feels sadness. Expose the amoeba to some shaky camera footage with a driving, suspenseful soundtrack and the amoeba's pulse races or, rather, its ectoplasm flutters excitedly.

Some women complain that they cry at diaper commercials. I cry at diaper boxes. I get watery eyes at the last line of any book, even if it wasn't any good. I weep openly during previews for movies that I don't want to see.

Once, I saw a very small ad in the newspaper for the movie "The Joy Luck Club." I didn't know much about it, and didn't plan to see it. The tag line for the ad was something like, "Because family means everything" or "They stuck together through thick and thin." I don't remember. All I know is that I glanced at it and choked up.

Yes, my point is that you should never, ever trust my opinion on anything, ever again.