Private Malpractice

ABC wants you to think that its new drama Private Practice is all about good-looking, frisky MDs sudsing up an L.A. clinic. But what it's really about is reengineering morality.

That's a near-terminal diagnosis, since each time this Grey's Anatomy spin-off tackles something traditional, it turns it on its head and shakes it.

Out of the Grey
The connection to Grey's Anatomy is at the very least twofold: Private Practice's creator is Shonda Rhimes, who this year won a Golden Globe for Anatomy. And Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery (played by Kate Walsh) bridges the two shows as an OB-GYN with lots of, shall we say, baggage.

Addison has left Seattle Grace Hospital and retreated to Los Angeles to recover from dented relationships and a destroyed marriage. She's decided to join med school pals Naomi and Sam Bennett (also divorced now) in a private practice venture that's conceived to provide whole-body care for its patients. To make that happen, Addison's surgical and gynecological skills, Naomi's fertility specialty and Sam's self-help bent are rounded out by pediatrician Dr. Cooper Freedman, psychiatrist Dr. Violet Turner and alternative-medicine master Dr. Pete Wilder.

Oh, and then there's the clinic's receptionist, a young, hunky boy-man named William Dell Parker, who's supposedly training to become a midwife—but will probably never finish since he spends every waking moment fawning over Naomi.

Going Beyond What the Newspapers Say
There's enough diversity of occupation, perspective and personality here to keep the series alive for years. And while trading in Anatomy's quirky dramedy style for the serious (very serious) drama beat may not win over a wider swath of fans, it will certainly give more weight to the issues Rhimes decides to present.

And so, we're back to morality.

Chicago's Daily Herald recently called the series "miserable" and "salacious." And the Detroit Free Press' freep.com awarded it the "After M.A.S.H. Certificate of Bad Spin-Off Dishonor."

But it goes far beyond those kinds of broadsheet bromides. My first reaction after watching an early episode applaud a 10-year-old boy for asking his male crush out on a date? This show could become the most culturally influential hour on TV—at least for those who ignore the drubbing it's taken from an artistic point of view.

Parents may be capable of analyzing and second-guessing the ins and outs of why Dr. Freedman tells the lad, "I wish I was you," "You're a lot braver than I am" and, "You are young—you will have a lot of chances to fall in love with someone who is really into you big time." But younger eyes connected to younger minds will likely only hear one message: Do you have a really good friend? Do you spend every waking moment with him (or her)? Then you're probably in love. Go for it!

"Love and Marriage/You Can Have One Without the Other"
Similarly destructive is Dr. Turner's psychiatric ambivalence toward the institution of marriage. For her, it's all about personal fulfillment, not sacrificial love and dedication. She believes in that so fervently, in fact, that when a married man whom she is counseling decides to stay with his wife through thick and thin, she strongly reprimands him for abandoning all the "progress" he's made over years of therapy.

Another episode spends a great deal of time establishing a woman's God-given right to pleasure herself. It involves, among other things, vibrating shower heads. Dr. Turner is especially vocal in her praise of the habit, as she is in her approval of casual sex.

"It's empowering for women, actually, casual sex. It can be, as long as the boundaries are clear," she says. "Whatever helps you scratch the itch is fine."

Skip forward a month, and the subject is one man's proclivity to insert things (shoes) into his body cavities. This is finally where Violet draws the line. "Freaks," she says with a sigh.

Mixed throughout are steamy sex scenes, near sex scenes and partial nudity. When Dr. Turner impulsively offers herself to Dr. Freedman, she strips down to nothing while he stops at his boxers. Across town, Naomi and Sam start sex on the clinic's conference room table. Frank discussions of anatomical functions routinely accompany "medical" diagnoses. And there's also near-nudity seen in some of the "procedures"—particularly one involving a birthing tub. Customary for the female docs are low-cut blouses that would seem more at home in a nightclub than a medical practice.

"Ultimately, asking if Private Practice is good is like asking if a Twinkie is good," writes Heather Havrilesky for Salon. "The answer is 'No' and 'Of course!' and, also, 'Give me another one.'" That's why this show has the power to influence a lot of people this season. Give me another one even though I know it's not healthy equals a steady diet of upside-down moral cake laced with melodrama to make it go down and stay down.