Private Practice: Season 1

Amazon.com

Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh, Grey's Anatomy) leaves behind McDreamy, McSteamy, and McSeattle to join California's Oceanside Wellness Center, a private practice that was founded by two best friends from med school. But if she's expecting a drama-free existence, she's in the wrong place. Naomi (Audra McDonald) and Sam (Taye Diggs) Bennett are the perfect couple who aren't together anymore. Pediatrician Cooper Freedman (Paul Adelstein) is a horny Peter Pan looking for love on the Internet. Violet Turner (Amy Brenneman) is a psychiatrist who can dish out the advice, but can't get over her own breakup to a man who has clearly moved on. And then there's Pete Wilder (Tim Daly), an alternative-medicine practitioner so good-looking and charming that Addison can't stop crushing on him, even though she dismisses his brand of practice as New Age-y. Created by Grey's Anatomy's Shonda Rhimes to capitalize on Walsh's popularity, Private Practice has some screwy moments that don't fall in line with Addison's cosmopolitan character. Are we really to believe that Addison is so messed up that she really believes the elevator is talking to her? That conceit would've worked on Ally McBeal's titular heroine, but on Addison Montgomery? We don't think so. The show, which was affected by the writer's strike of 2007, lacks cohesiveness in the truncated 10 episodes on this DVD box set. But still, the series shows promise. Though some of the plot devises are melodramatic at best (Sam has to deliver the baby of a woman who had been robbing the store just moments before), viewers end up rooting for the quirky characters to get their personal lives in order. Though we're supposed to be longing for Addison and Pete to couple up, and for the Bennetts to realize that their divorce was a mistake, it's really Cooper and Violet who have all the makings to be the show's most intriguing couple. The debut season showed some interesting plot devices: two couples whose babies were mistakenly exchanged at birth; a senior citizen with unexplainable bruising on his body; and one of the female characters dealing with her own infertility issues. But the thrust of the show is how the doctors work and play together. Talking to one of her patients, Addison says, "Everyone screws up once in awhile." That can also be the motto for the Oceanside Wellness Center. --Jae-Ha Kim

Stills from Private Practice: The Complete First Season (Click for larger image)

Product Description

From the Golden Globe-winning creator of GREY'S ANATOMY comes ABC's new hit drama, PRIVATE PRACTICE: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON EXTENDED EDITION -- now on DVD. Seattle fades into grey as renowned surgeon Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) aims to reinvent herself. The promise of a simpler golden state of mind has her working alongside medical school friends at California's Oceanside Wellness Group. But is this new life prescription her cure? Join Addison, newly-divorced-but-professionally-bound Naomi and Sam Bennet, the kissable Pete Wilder, the by-the-book Dr. Charlotte King, Cooper the Internet surfer, Dell the wave surfer and Violet Turner -- a psychiatrist with her own issues -- as affairs of the heart bring on symptoms of love, lust, and high drama in a journey worth taking. You have an appointment with an all-star cast including Taye Diggs, Amy Brenneman, Audra McDonald, Tim Daly, Paul Adelstein, KaDee Strickland and Chris Lowell for every Season One episode, bonus features, and the perfect dose of complicated modern living, which is anything but a PRIVATE PRACTICE., ISBN13: B0018CWEZI ISBN10: B0018CWEZI Material Type: dvd