Category: News (Page 267 of 401)

Confession: prior to the announcement that “Grey’s Anatomy” was going to be getting a spin-off, I’d never seen a single episode of the show.

Even worse, I don’t even have a decent excuse for it. Everybody I know who’s seen the show has loved it, so, really, it just comes down to the fact that there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to check it out. One of these days, though, I’m sure I’ll take the plunge and pick up a copy of Season 1 and just jump headlong into the series…and based on how much I enjoyed the pilot for its spin-off, “Private Practice,” that day may come sooner than later.

Y’know, I’ve tagged this as a “Pilots Revisited” entry, but the truth is that this is the first time I’ve checked out this pilot; before, all I had to go on was last season’s 2-hour episode of “Grey’s,” where Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh) leaves Seattle Grace Hospital and goes to visit one of her friends, Dr. Naomi Bennett (Merrin Dungey), who’s a member of the Oceanside Wellness Center, in Santa Monica, CA. It was what the kids today call a “backdoor pilot,” which is to say that it gave the folks at the network all they needed to see to know that Addison’s adventures would make for a great series on their own…so, basically, if you saw the episode and heard about the impending spin-off, you won’t be surprised to find that the first episode of “Private Practice” – “In Which We Meet Addison, A Nice Girl From Somewhere Else” – begins with Addison tendering her official resignation to Dr. Webber (James Pickens, Jr.) and heading off to join Naomi’s practice.

Well, first things first: Naomi is now played by Tony Award-winning actress Audra McDonald, who you may or may not remember from a few episodes of “Kidnapped.” Otherwise, however, the gang from the Wellness Center remains intact…and, frankly, that gang – Tim Daly (“The Nine”), Taye Diggs (“Day Break”), Amy Brenneman (“Judging Amy”), Paul Adelstein (“Prison Break”), and Chris Lowell (“Veronica Mars”) – is what makes this show worth checking out whether you’re a fan of “Grey’s Anatomy” or not.

(Here’s a YouTube link to an ABC / Entertainment Weekly segment collaboration which talks about the cast.)

This first episode revolves around one key event: Naomi neglected to tell anyone else at the Center that she’d hired Addison, which annoys everyone to a certain degree, some more than others. Addison rolls with the reaction from her new co-workers and tries to indoctrinate herself into the group as best she can; meanwhile, everyone else pretty much just goes on with their normal day. The feel of the show is, I’m led to understand, pretty similar to “Grey’s”…which is to say that when I asked fellow editor David Medsker, “Does ‘Grey’s’ kind of blend humor and drama, with really snappy back-and-forth patter when the primary cast members are talking to each other?”, he responded, “I’ve only seen an episode or two, but that sounds about right.” So, y’know, take it with a grain of salt. As it stands right now, it looks like the series will blend the expected medical drama with a more leisurely pace – Addison’s told to expect an average of about one patient a day – that will no doubt lead to just as many developments in the characters’ personal lives as you’d anticipate in a nighttime soap.

Stupid ABC, making me want to watch a spin-off of a show I’ve never even seen before. Why must you create such a fantastic ensemble? You suck.

P.S. More, please.

There are three big reasons to take another look at “Life,” NBC’s new police drama…but, first, here’s the premise in a nutshell:

Charlie Crew is a cop who’s arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and sent to jail for 12 years before he’s cleared; upon his release, he scores not only a considerable amount of financial compensation for being wrongly jailed but, additionally, gets himself put back on the force, mostly so that he can quietly continue to find an answer to question of who did commit the crime of which he was accused.

There, that’s out of the way. Now, on to those three big reasons to take another look at the show…

Actually, the first one’s as much a matter of principle as anything. The role of the lawyer who helps Charlie overturn his conviction was played by Melissa Sagemiller (Gayle Bishop on “Sleeper Cell”) in the pilot but is now played by Brooke Langton (Samantha Reilly on “Melrose Place”); frankly, though, the character doesn’t really get a lot of play in the pilot, so the difference between actresses is mostly negligible.

The second reason, however, is definitely worth discussing. In the fall preview, I said of Charlie Crews that he “comes across as one of those characters who’s straddling the line between eccentric and annoying, and he tends toward the latter more often than he ought to, which is troublesome.” It’s notable that they’ve re-cut the pilot to chop out a few moments here and there to attempt and remedy this problem, though I couldn’t help but notice that one of the cuts was, in fact, one of the moments that made me laugh. (When Charlie arrives at his first crime scene after returning to the force, he walks up behind two officers who are discussing things they’ve heard he’d done, and he promptly interrupts them with his own “I heard he…” moment.) Overall, the quirkiness is still there, but as we progress into the second episode – “Tear Asunder” – there’s a definite attempt to focus more on Charlie’s attempts to solve the mystery of who committed that 12-year-old crime and less on his being so bizarre. In fact, on that front, they even slide in a moment which indicates that he was completely and totally normal before he went into prison, so one presumes that they’re going to further explore the events that occurred during Charlie’s stay behind bars.

Lastly, the third reason to take another look at “Life” is that, at least based on the second episode, they’re starting to do more with Adam Arkin’s character. Arkin plays Ted Early, a former inmate who knew Charlie when they were both in the clink together; apparently, Charlie saved Ted’s life in prison and, as a result, Ted’s now serving as Charlie’s financial advisor. The pilot had a brief but funny moment tagged onto the very end, where Charlie buys an orange grove – complete with tractor – and Ted decides to take Charlie up on his offer to drive the tractor. Suffice it to say that Mr. Early probably hasn’t been called Farmer Ted a great deal, and his actions while behind the wheel of the tractor result in a plot thread which is picked up in “Tear Asunder” to great effect.

I’m still not 100% sure that “Life” is going to find an audience, but, even so, kudos to the producers for steering their boat into slightly less murky waters.

Here’s a teaser: