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?

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.