Talkin' Lots of 'Private Practice'

Ever since the start of its third season, Private Practice has been lurching from one wildly dramatic storyline (with Violet Turner recovering from the violent, brutal C-section at the hands of a former patient), to another (currently Sam and Naomi Bennett's 15-year-old daughter's pregnancy and the flirtation between Sam and his ex-wife's best friend, Addision Montgomery). Suffice is to say, Violet's baby drama aside, there's been lots of romantic partner swapping, rivers of tears, loads of screaming and shoulder-clenching tension in recent episodes, so much so, that they've provided lots of grist for two Private Practice-centric pieces.

The first is a column on Mommy Tracked about the bold move on the part of Private Practice writers to decide to portray two moms -- Violet and Naomi -- in a negative light, as Violet decided that her post-traumatic stress was too much for her to bear so she gave her baby over to his dad and refuses to see the infant, while an infuriated and unhinged Naomi tried to force her pregnant teenaged daughter into having an abortion against the girl's will. (Naomi's reaction to her daughter's pregnancy has been so harsh that, aside from Emily Gilmore's reaction to her 16-year-old daughter's pregnancy, I'm having trouble thinking of another mother who's been portrayed this badly.)

The second is a post over on CliqueClack TV about the preponderance of Private Practice's intramural partner swapping which has grown to such epic proportions that I wonder if the show's in danger of running out of people to sleep with . . . kind of like what's happened to Grey's Anatomy.

Have you been watching Private Practice? Think they're gonna have to import more Grey's characters (a la McSteamy) in order to get more people for Private Practice characters to sleep with? Are you surprised by the portrayal of Violent and Naomi as troubled moms?

Image credit: Eric McCandless/ABC.