Private Practice, the much-maligned spin-off of Grey's Anatomy, is not the best drama on television. It's not even the best show featuring professionally pissed-off doctors. (I'll still give that to House.) But following the show's winning ratings on Thursday evening, the show warrants defense against skeptics (a group that used to include me) who think NBC vaunts the night's best programming. The threefold argument unfurls after the jump.
1. Nothing better was on
Frankly, this is the most important tenet. Even on NBC's big Thursday night, The Office's Parkour-themed episode was tepid for a season opener, and any of its three accompanying comic showcases (SNL Weekend Update Thursday, Parks and Recreation, the doomed Community) don't live up to the talent in their casts, and Private Practice's 10 p.m. competitor The Jay Leno Show may soon not even have the guests to lasso decent numbers. CBS's Survivor and Fox's Bones and Fringe seem stagnant as well. Mind you, this argument does not apply to you if you love old, not-really-old vampires.
2. Kate Walsh is worth your time
She wouldn't have been my first choice for a Grey's Anatomy spin-off headliner, but Kate Walsh whizzed through Private Practice's premiere with a hardened gusto as Dr. Addison Montgomery. As she operated on the gruesomely bloody Violet (Amy Brenneman), whose fetus was violently ripped from her womb by the psychotic patient Katie Kent (Amanda Foreman), Addison's professionalism took a few jagged turns into compelling desperation. Her plea to Naomi (Audra McDonald) that she could handle the dire prognoses of Violet and her recovered baby was particularly memorable: "I can save them both, Na, I can save them both!"
3. Behold the most grueling story line on TV.
Did you just hear me? A fetus was forcibly stolen from a pregnant woman. Shitting you, I am not. When Dr. Pete Wilder (Tim Daly) discovers Violet unconscious, we also lay eyes on some startlingly real innards peeking out through her stomach. We never get a close-up of the unholy sight, and that makes it chilling, perhaps even in a Hitchcockian way. Props also go to Tim Daly for the flashback of his jarring confessional to Violet, where he reflects on the death of his wife. "My wife died... all I could think was that I can breathe again." Sure, the dialogue sometimes registers as typical Shonda Rhimes pulp, but Private Practice exhibits a modicum of verve that elevates its quality beyond what most terse overviews have yet to acknowledge.