Private Practice News (Page 5)

Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) left Grey's Anatomy last week, ostensibly for her own spinoff show, tentatively titled Private Practice.

Now it's up to ABC to decide if that spinoff is justified.

From a numbers standpoint, it's an easy decision. Last Thursday's two-hour episode, "The Other Side of This Life," in which Addison left Seattle Grace for a new start and new pals in Santa Monica, Calif., drew over 21 million viewers.

But from a critical standpoint, it's, well, a Grey area.

The spinoff was greeted less-than-enthusiastically by many Grey's Anatomy fans, who voiced their displeasure on online forums and message boards.

"It was the first time that Grey's has been on ABC that I went to bed before it was over," one fan wrote.

"Addison will never make it on her own show. The characters were not very good on the new show and it was annoying to watch."

"Awful is an understatement," replied another. "I had two phone calls from friends after the first hour and we all had the same opinion - it sucked."

ABC officials, so far, have been quiet regarding the spinoff, the fate of which will be clear Tuesday when ABC unveils its upcoming fall schedule at its "upfront" presentation.

One network insider yesterday described ABC officials as "thrilled" with the show's ratings and "very happy" with its content, which was supplied by show creator Shonda Rhimes (who wrote the two-hour episode).

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It's a decision that could change Grey's Anatomy forever... and spawn another hit show. But do we want it to?

When Thursday's two-hour episode, "The Other Side of This Life (Parts I & II)," hits the airwaves, the focal point will be Addison, who is currently considering a change of scenery.

A permanent change of scenery.

We're told that Addison talks with her god-daughter and her friends from medical school, and that she lands a job offer outside of Seattle. Many interesting people guest star in the course of Dr. Montgomery's road trip to Los Angeles, leading us to wonder if Addison (Kate Walsh) will return... or whether Private Practice will be officially born.

As for the former men in her life, Derek has to perform emergency surgery and Mark treats a patient who wants more than surgery. Preston has a reservation about marrying Cristina, and he turns to someone unlikely for advice on the matter. The doctors also treat a woman with a rare type of cancer, and whose daughter doesn't believe people make mistakes.

Here's a preview of "The Other Side of This Life" ...

As usual, we'll have our comprehensive episode recap, music guide, list of quotes and image gallery up after the show. We're looking forward to this event and will be watching right along with you. Follow this link for our episode guide, quotes and more from last week's "Desire."

Spinoffs are a tricky business.

For every success like "Frasier," which was birthed by "Cheers," there's a "Tortellis" flop of the same lineage. The "All in the Family" DNA gave us the "Jeffersons" hit â€" and the "Gloria" disaster.

In recent years, the Los Angeles Times notes, spinning off has been largely replaced by cloning â€" as with the three "CSI" shows, which replicate the same format but with different casts in other cities.

But Thursday, "Grey's Anatomy," ABC's celebrated and culturally resonant medical soap opera, is going old school: The pilot of its presumptive spinoff, starring Kate Walsh as the popular character Addison Montgomery, is embedded within a two-hour episode of the show.

The opportunity represents a big leap forward for Kate Walsh, 39, who, pre-Addison, fell into the "I gotta look her up on IMDB" category.

"I've been very fortunate to be a working actress who hovered along," she said. "And then it was like, boom, 'Grey's Anatomy.'"

Half of Thursday's episode, "The Other Side of This Life," will be a normal episode, filled with love triangles, wedding dilemmas and medical crises; the other half will establish Addison's new world by jettisoning her from the show's Seattle hospital backdrop into a Los Angeles full of old friends and fraught relationships.

Shonda Rhimes, the obsessively secretive creator of "Grey's Anatomy," has let few plot details leak, but the new show's cast members â€" Taye Diggs, Amy Brenneman, Merrin Dungey, Tim Daly and others â€" will all make their first appearances Thursday.

Rumored to be titled "Private Practice," the show must vie for a place on ABC's fall schedule, which the network announces to advertisers and the press in mid-May.

But considering that "Grey's Anatomy" is ABC's top-rated scripted show, and more than that, has helped define its upscale, girl-power brand, it stands a good chance of becoming a series.

Stephen McPherson, ABC's entertainment president, said that when Rhimes and fellow executive producer Betsy Beers approached him with the spinoff idea in the fall, "I immediately kissed them," he remembered with a laugh.

"I flipped for it."

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After Thursday's "Desire," we all saw the previews for next week. It looks like quite the two-part episode brewing. Along similar lines, we happened across this ad in TV Guide for the two-hour Grey's Anatomy special - "The Other Side of This Life (Parts I & II)" an episode that as the pilot for the long-awaited Kate Walsh-led spin-off, Private Practice...

It's a cool ad, and appropriate that it features the cast of Grey's Anatomy along side the new stars of Private Practice (including Taye Diggs and Tim Daly), with Addison Montgomery on the verge of a major life change.

Click here for some Private Practice promotional pictures. We're eagerly looking forward to the pilot and to both parts of next week's Grey's Anatomy event. We'll post some longer previews (as well as potential spoilers) as the big day draws nearer.

ABC has released over 40 promotional stills over the weekend from the most talked about episode of Grey's Anatomy - the episode that, if all goes according to plan, will officially kick off a spin-off series.

The stills reveal what the new spin-off series, starring the lovely Kate Walsh, as well as Taye Diggs and others, might look like come fall...

The two-hour Grey's Anatomy special episode will be entitled "The Other Side of This Life (Part I & II), will air Thursday, May 3 from 9:00-11:00, with an encore telecast set for Friday, May 4, from 8:00-10:00.

The working title of the series is "Private Practice."

More spin-off details are filtering out of Grey's Anatomy headquarters.

Despite producers' efforts to keep a lid on the potential Grey's Anatomy spin-off, tentatively titled Private Practice, some more supposed plot spoilers have been exposed by the Los Angeles Times:

After reaching her personal and professional breaking point, Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) heads down to Santa Monica, Calif.

The plan: to seek advice from two of her old medical school friends, Naomi (Merrin Dungey) and Jackson (Taye Diggs).

This is a couple whom she believes have it all: a beautiful teen daughter, a great marriage and a highly successful health cooperative.

Addison quickly learns, though, that Jackson, also a successful TV health guru, has divorced Naomi. During her visit to California, Addison meets the rest of the gang at the cooperative - a widowed alternative medicine practitioner, a self-doubting therapist, and a male gynecologist who knows little about women - and realizes she's on familiar ground.

Figuring she's due for a change and she'd fid right in with this driven, yet quirky crew, Addison decides to bolt Seattle Grace and join the Oceanside Wellness Group - if ABC picks up the Grey's Anatomy spin-off, of course.

The heavily anticipated Kate Walsh-led Grey's Anatomy spin off finally has a name. A tentative one, at least: Private Practice.

According to Buddy TV, ABC unveiled the moniker for the new show at a star studded media buyers event during network development week.

ABC executives lauded the spin off's spectacular cast that in addition to Walsh, includes Taye Diggs, Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Chris Lowell, and numerous others.

The Grey's Anatomy spin-off is being touted for its stand alone premise that will take Kate Walsh's character out of the realm of nightmare medical emergencies and incorporated hospital trysts into a setting they think less hard core medical drama fans will appreciate.

In that sense, the proposed name for Grey's Anatomy 2.0 is quite apt.

ABC execs are quick to caution that the name of Private Practice may change, however. The two-hour episode set to sample the themes of the series will debut May 10, but don't think of it as a pilot. Grey's Anatomy is riding a high enough wave at this point that the second series is virtually a lock, whether the initial sample piques interests or not.

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