Private Practice (ABC)

PRIVATE PRACTICE is a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy that centers on the staff of Oceanside Wellness Center, a cooperative private medical facility in Los Angeles where patients are treated by some of the best doctors in specialties ranging from pediatrics to homeopathic care. Noted obstetrician and neonatal surgeon Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) heads up the practice that was started by her best friend, Dr. Naomi Bennett (Audra McDonald) and Naomi’s ex-husband, Dr. Sam Bennett (Taye Diggs). The patient cases these doctors handle are almost as complicated as their own personal lives, ensuring that things are never dull around the water cooler at this busy medical practice.

Private Practice is an enticing series that’s equal parts medical drama and soap opera. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the intricacies of the characters’ complicated lives, and their revolving workplace romances keep things, well, lively. Smart writing and a talented cast enable the show to handle the intense, real-life subject matter it explores, and the fact that it makes a concerted effort to present weighty issues like mental illness, homosexuality, and addiction from multiple viewpoints gives viewers plenty to ponder after it’s turned off.

Of course, it’s this same content that rules it out as an option for any but the sturdiest viewers, since it doesn’t shy away from violence, sexual content, or raw human emotion. Life-and-death scenarios are commonplace throughout the show, and plenty of characters die. It’s the show’s adherence to sticking closely to reality (with the expected amount of melodrama) that gives it merit for adults but at the same time makes it problematic for most teens.