cometa I usually don't do medical movies. Even less TV series that I somehow got the impression never end and spin around and around the same characters and their stories and anxieties. I think about my own and dismiss the whole idea of dealing with other peoples' issues. But this series just got to me. I have only watched a few episodes of GA, so I can't quite say I "know" Addison's character, or her story before "Private Practice". Also, I think the first episode was kind of a long shot, to introduce to us all the characters and basically say "These are the people, get to know them fast". I would have probably gone to 2 episodes to introduce the characters. But it's fine, since the next, and the next and the next, until the very last episode, have gotten me pinned to the chair and losing sleep. It may not be a whole lot of medicine involved, but the way the characters evolve, and the issues and ethical problems they have, the way they react and the way they solve their differences, the bonds and friendships they have or don't have make them people we can relate to, human, in fact. I personally hate the whole shrink idea, so maybe I wouldn't have made a whole season with Addison seeing a shrink and beginning and ending an episode with her insights, but that's just me. I understand when symmetry is needed, and can cope with that. Nonetheless, it was a good show and I had fun watching it. I even liked Charlotte :)

Moviegoer19 If I had written this review five days ago I would have given it a rating of "10" and not "5". Why the change? Because during the five days the cumulative effect of watching several more episodes that promote a "pro-life" attitude has pushed me over the peak: from addictively watching the show to being astounded and appalled that such a seemingly sophisticated show is so insidiously pushing a point of view.The epitome of this was in episode 35, I believe, in which Violet spills her guts to a woman who was raped, is pregnant, and learns the baby she's carrying belongs not to her husband, but to the rapist. At first, Violet is appropriately (in my opinion) appalled that this young woman would even consider carrying a pregnancy to term and having a baby by a man who raped her. But then, of course, true to the "we love babies, life at any cost" attitude of this show, she changes her mind and ultimately influences her therapy patient to go ahead with the pregnancy. Well, at least I assume this is what happened because I had to fast forward through the scene as I couldn't stomach it.What?? Is this what this society has come to? Do we devalue the lives of women so much that pregnancy and childbirth and childrearing take precedence in every case? Then there was the episode earlier on in which Addison needs to choose between surgeries: does she save the mother or the fetus (or "unborn baby" as fetuses are now called). You guessed it: the fetus came first! though I do believe she tried to save both.After addictively watching 37 episodes of Private Practice because, yes, it is superbly well done: great acting by great, beautiful actors; exciting plots; beautiful environments - I have maxed out. I am so sick of this "let's have as many babies as possible because that's what life is all about" attitude that I'm calling it quits. Though the show is progressive in other ways, and sophisticated, this Rah!Rah! childbearing theme is more than I can bear. It's so reactionary for the cause of women - women who may want children but cannot have them for whatever reason, or women who may (gasp!) CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE THEM, that the pleasure of watching is gone. Too bad because it was a nice escape for me. But watching now is like watching a Republican presidential candidate debate (which I never, ever do).

someofusarebrave This was one of my favorite shows on television; top three, actually. I like it better than Grey's Anatomy--I laugh more, I relate to the characters more, and now that Meredith has gotten all "fixed," I find the conflicts more entertaining and more realistic. The show is thought-provoking and intelligent, the actors and actresses are AMAZING, the writing is fantastic, for once on prime-time television, and the plots are intriguing and amazingly well-organized. Y'all rock.I just spent the past twenty minutes talking with my mother about how your characterization of women makes us all out to be pathetic, spineless tramps. It's true. Most people don't behave like all y'all do. Naomi's the only one who has any dignity at all, and that's only because Audra Macdonald is such a formidable woman that Naomi seems powerful by proximity. You need new writers. Your characters have transformed only on surface levels over the course of the series. They all seem constantly ABOUT to change in some significant way without ever getting there. It's awfully disappointing, as a fan, to see.Please--get the show up to the level that Taye Diggs and Audra Macdonald and Amy Brenneman deserve it to be.Actress who plays Addison--you may eventually be at their level, but this is the first thing of note that you've done. So--prove yourself!This is a big-time, epic television show in a down-home, small-time, easy-to-relate-to package. It is as deceptively artful as Judging Amy was, a show that felt so much a seamless part of real life it was difficult to remember at times that the characters were not my next-door neighbor or my grandparent's sister. It is a shame that less flashy, perhaps smaller budget shows like these are so commonly passed over for the mega awards, Emmys and Golden Globes. They shouldn't be.Kate Walsh is fantastic, and makes her somewhat neurotic, easily hateable as truly beautiful women so often are character leap from the screen. Addison is graceful, a badass, and precisely the kind of woman we all wish we had as aunts. This woman is the kind of 'fabulous' Sex and the City's little girls only wish they could be. Taye Diggs rocks. Proving here once again he's not just a pretty face, his acting improves with every season. He's got the chops to match the extraordinary talent present in the women of this show, and that's saying a whole lot, considering who he's matched with.Amy Brenneman rocks my world. Thank you God for women capable of being gorgeous, sexy without needing to take off a stitch of clothing to do so, down-to-Earth, and emotionally present in absolutely every moment of every scene this show does. Amy is ridiculously underrated as an actress. She is the kind of woman Holly Hunter, for all her glamour and hamming for the camera and blatantly overt sexuality, has not yet discovered herself to be. I wish we lived in the kind of world where women like this got the credit they deserve. Amy is a truly professional actress, the kind of person who is a welcome addition to any team yet is rarely ranked as high as the 'starlets' whose self-destructive antics have misogynist's eyes glued to the screen and thereby increase rankings. Amy is the kind of ass-kicking superheroine capable of playing women in touch with their own issues, rather than avoiding them--she is in other words genuinely emotionally mature, and that is a rare but lucky find. Talk about a diamond in the rough.Speaking of credit where credit's due, Audra McDonald can ACT! The woman is one of the best singers currently alive, says I, AND she has excellent dramatic skills and comedic timing. WHOA! You make the rest of us look like underachievers, regardless what we are doing with our lives...you also inspire us to be better than ever we thought ourselves capable of before. Thou art amazing.The rest of the people on the show rock too. However, they are all white, and most are men. They affect my viewing experience less, and hence I will suffice it to say they do not get in the way of my enjoyment of the show. That's high praise in this company. This is better than most prime-time television shows, as much as it is also more enjoyable than most prime-time shows are. It is easily dismissable because it is headlined by female actresses, and I will say that gladly in the face of any "official" or "critic" who knocks it as being too 'emotional'. That's what life is about--our emotional experience of it. The show can be smart AND funny, snappy AND full of genuine catharsis. I for one absolutely adore it, and I'll go to bat for it any day.

Cris_Drg this started really well. drama was dealt with nicely, not too much, not too little. strong, deep characters and well coordinated character arcs. this lasted for like 2 series. afterward, it turned into this idiotic fruit salad, where everybody sleeps with everybody and nobody needs good reason to say or do anything. character arcs and descriptions were thrown into the garbage bin and I struggles hard to keep watching what used to be one of my favorite shows. so this is about the episode entitled "War". from the writing of this episode, I get it that the target audience is IQ bellow 80, with lots of prejudice and repressed mother issues. the writing is so bad in this episode, I have to wonder if it was written by or for monkeys. by the info they show in this episode and others, Violet IS ready. she did indeed "the work". so what happens goes against what the audience KNOWS, but nothing on the screen acknowledges this. the only problem I can think of is Violet did "the work" someplace else (not on display for her "friends"). By all possible judgment, she did what a responsible adult should do when faced with such a terrible tragedy, and what a therapist knows she needs to do to make it right. nice writing so far. very smart and it shows someone did their research. as we've got accustomed with, Violet is a great professional, even when dealing with personal issues. then it all goes rotten when the plot is twisted so that the most stupid conclusion seems to be right - except nothing in the plot supports it. other than the awful writing. (what happens when a plot goes a way that is not natural for the characters, but pushed by the writer's agenda).the Judge says something really stupid - which basically means "I'm not gonna do my job and judge this, I'm gonna let your friends do it (despite their obvious personal agendas and emotional problems)". right. because "judges are...stupid"? -No specialist is called to testify, by either party. Seriously? although there are specialists there, their opinion should NOT count, and should NOT be aloud by the Judge because they are interested parties - yet it does and it is (hello bad writing).-the point where the "friends" are not ready to accept Violet has dealt with the attack, because the friends have not dealt with their own emotional stakes in it and because they has not witnessed her process of recovery - this is so obvious, yet it is not even mentioned in the film. why? the characters have been really smart, quite brilliant so far. the lawyers are presented as smart. and this is such an obvious point that the whole plot revolves around it. the "ordinary" person may not know that the way Violet dealt with the the attack is actually quite right, but the ordinary person is NOT a therapist, or a specialist. but there are such people in the film - that could and should have brought it up. there's a (formally) brilliant therapist - Violet herself, and her therapist from NY (who's NOT being called to testify for mysterious reasons). also her ex by, Sheldon?, who's never been an idiot before in this film, but now suddenly is - or simply acts out of character, by judging it as an uneducated person would instead of what the character is. so- what could've been a great episode, and a great lesson for the audience about how to best deal with personal tragedy, turned into a fruit-cake. lots of sugar, bad for your health. I guess the target audience is neither smart, nor educated - and they need to keep it like that. smart, educated audiences would cost more, and these writers would lose their respective jobs. had this been a producer's decision, I apologize to the writers. they had to sell their souls for food, cos that's the (real) world we live in, right?