About that 'Grey's' Finale . . .

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the Grey’s Anatomy season finale.*

Have you come down from that intense, highly caffeinated Grey’s Anatomy season six finale yet? Seriously.

The blood bath, the deaths, the tension. For two freakin’ hours. That’s not what I need to watch right before I going to bed.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Good Wife' Stays Solid, 'Grey's Anatomy's' Parent Issues & 'Parenthood' Turning a Corner?

Good Wife Remains Solid

Okay Good Wife writers. You’ve got me.

My frequent complaint about your freshman drama has been that I’d prefer to see more scenes depicting the life of a political spouse/family in the wake of a humiliating sex scandal committed by the public official (a la the Spitzers, Sanfords, Clintons, Edwardes, et al) rather than load it up with legal procedural stuff. If I want to watch a garden variety lawyer show, I could go elsewhere. It’s not that I mind the legal cases, it's just that I didn’t want them to overwhelm the unique twist that makes The Good Wife different from other dramas.
That was the fear I had when The Good Wife seemed to be focusing more on getting to the truth about a criminal case or on how to deftly maneuver in the courtroom in order to secure a particular judgment.

But, overall, I have to say, the writers have done a good job of balancing the law and the personal life. Even though the latest episode “Doubt” – in which the disgraced, house-arrested Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) did not even appear – focused largely on a murder case, it did so in a way that was smart and intriguing by looking at the case from the perspective of the jury. Gold stars for not ending the episode in a rosy, optimistic note for Julianna Margulies’ Alicia Florrick’s team.

Grey’s Ponders Mixing Maternity & Medicine

Mixing maternity and medicine has been a semi-regular theme on Grey’s Anatomy since day one. We’ve known from the first handful of episodes that Meredith Grey sustained emotional damage from a childhood in which her parents divorced, her father essentially abandoned her and her mother, a successful surgeon, virtually blew her off and always chose medicine over Meredith.

In a 2007 episode, Meredith was assisting in an operation on a child both of whose parents were career-oriented and hardly ever at home. As a result, the girl bonded with her nanny more so than with her own parents. Meredith remarked that people with big-time careers should just get a cat instead of a kid because the kid needs time and attention from a mom or a dad. However the lead surgeon in the room, Miranda Bailey, a new mom, took umbrage.

Years later, Bailey, who’s now a divorced mom, has had her ups and downs with the child/career thing but seems to be in a good place right now just as other characters with high-pressure careers -- Callie Torres, McSteamy, McDreamy and Meredith -- are contemplating parenthood. I explored how Grey’s has been handling the issue of doctors having kids in my weekly Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Grey's' Flashed Back, 'Private Practice's' Naomi Wised Up & Olympians Fell

*Warning, minor spoilers from recent episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice*

The Picture-in-Picture option on my TV got a hearty workout Thursday night as I put the Olympics (men's ice skating in particular) into a small box on the lower righthand corner of the screen while I watched Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice on the big picture.

Grey's featured flashbacks (a little Lost trick) for three characters. Bailey, Webber and Torres each recalled a case from the past that had an impact on them. My favorite part of the episode was seeing Miranda Bailey as a timid first year intern and who wore pink-rimmed glasses and drank fruity drinks with umbrellas in them before she evolved into the tough Bailey we know and love. My CliqueClack TV post on "The Time Warp" is here.


Meanwhile, Private Practice indulged in more sick/dying kid drama (I think the writers must own stock in Kleenex . . . or Zololoft), closed the loop on the Maya's pregnant/getting married to her 15-year-old baby daddy story and Naomi finally dispensed with her foul attitude and woman-ed up. Kind of. Well, for the time being. Or at least for the "'Til Death Do Us Part" episode, which I wrote about here. Actually, she just showed up to the wedding. Who knows if she'll actually resume mothering her kid.



As for the Olympics . . . what the heck is up with all these skating-related falls? Have there been more falls than in previous years or does it just seem that way?

When I watched the pairs ice skating competitions earlier this week it seemed as though couples which didn't have a spill were the exceptions. Last night, male skater after male skater hit the ice, and not in a good way. Pair this with the brutal skiing wipeouts and the luger death last week and perhaps even the curlers at the Vancouver winter Olympics should consider wearing protective gear. Who knew Canada was so dangerous?

'Desperate' Mondays: Rose's Turn

Maybe it's because I was spoiled by three consecutive days of thrilling baseball in the form of the Boston Red Sox kicking the New York Yankees' collective behinds. Ground rule doubles. Fastballs at 99 mph. A grand slam. STEALING HOME PLATE. What's better than that?

Maybe it's because HBO's In Treatment (which I'm going to write about in a separate blog item) is so gripping and exquisite, even when you're watching nothing but people talking.

Maybe it's because many other TV shows have been so good lately, such as Lost, Rescue Me, House, The Office, experiencing a rebirth of sorts with Michael's upstart company. (I'm currently irritated that Grey's Anatomy has become a showcase for dead and dying kid scenes. Seriously, as the mom of young kids, I can't take these kinds of scenes each week. I'm begging ya Shonda, please have Dr. Bailey get out of pediatrics, NOW!)

Whatever the cause, I do know that I've lost my Desperate Housewives' mojo. I've been writing about the show on this blog after each new episode but have been rapidly losing interest, despite the fact that the show's continuing to get good ratings. I, personally, don't find it a "must-see" anymore. Stories are becoming repetitive, characters too predictable.

How many times is Bree going to be betrayed by her husband/lover? (Rex cheated. The creepy pharmacist guy wooed Bree after killing Rex. Orson swooped in, knowing full well he'd already tried to kill Bree's neighbor Mike. I could go on and on here. Bree's unlucky in love. We've got it. But how many times are we going to see her go to war with the man who she once loved?)

How many episodes are going to feature the theme that people routinely hide things from one another? (Wasn't that the theme of the pilot episode, that Mary Alice was hiding her pain when her life looked pristine and perfect from the outside just before she committed suicide? Katherine "confessing" that she was hiding her desire for Mike to commit to her? Duh. Of course she'd want commitment. It would be out of character for her not to.)

How many times are we going to witness one spouse get jealous of another? (Tom getting upset that Lynette took a shower at the office? Like Lynette's really going to cheat on him with Carlos. Tom is feeling emasculated -- AGAIN -- because Lynette is working and comes home tired and uninterested in sex. Tom's looking to validate himself, make himself feel better. Why not have him buy a midlife crisis-mobile. Oh, wait. Already did that. How about have him join a rock band? Did that too. Flirt with a horny neighborhood housewife? Now he can check that off his list.)

Bah!

So now, if the heavy-handed foreshadowing at the end of this episode goes where I think it's going to go, we're going to see nutty, lying Dave try to kill Susan and Mike's son in order to pay Susan back for accidentally killing Dave's first wife and child? An injured or dead/dying kid, what is this, Grey's Anatomy? Good grief. Maybe they should just call an end to the season right now so the writers can re-group.

Image credit: ABC.