TV Review: Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice

Private Practice was the lighter show, but it's drifting towards Grey's Anatomy's wallowing.

Dean Martin once said he would hate to be a teetotaller. "Imagine getting up in the morning and knowing that's as good as you're going to feel all day."

Starting the week with back-to-back episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice is a bit like starting your day with a cracking hangover. It's hard work. But at least things can only get better.

Private Practice joined its sister show Grey's on TV2's Sunday night line-up last night, administering a double dose of miserable medical drama.

Set in Los Angeles, the spin-off was originally billed as "the sunny side" of Grey's Anatomy.

But there was little sunny about last night's premiere - which dealt with of murder, abortion and a comatose pregnancy.

Following on from the heart failures, brain tumours and ghostly apparitions of Grey's, it made for two hours of intense television that rather felt like undergoing an exhausting surgical procedure. Without the anaesthesia.

Indeed, the only humour to arise from the two-hour line up was the Grey's interns squabbling over unclaimed cadavers - which they stole to practice their surgical skills on.

Looking back, it wasn't actually funny. It was simply a brief reprieve from constant attempts to emotionally sucker-punch the audience.

Such manipulation has come to be expected from Grey's, which has specialised in the cathartic-wallow genre for five seasons. But Private Practice had, until now, been the lighter of the two shows.

Perhaps it was the first-night-back effect - an attempt to hook viewers in with as much drama as possible - but this season seems to have forgone its earlier timbre and is slowly creeping back towards the monochromatic world of Grey's.

This could be groundwork for the upcoming crossover episodes (the reason the two series have been scheduled back-to-back), in which Seattle Grace and Oceanside Wellness will merge universes, with Grey's members featuring in Private Practice episodes and vice versa.

The question is: Why have two shows if they are going to combine to become one?

Private Practice succeeded as a spin-off in its first season because it had a separate spirit and identity to Grey's.

If the two are going to start mirroring one another, what's the point?

Especially when the reflection is so unilaterally wretched.

Private Practice ended last night with three miserable people staring at a flickering candle, while more miserable people stared at a sunset.

And the one supposedly happy person, Addison, bawled as she assured her boyfriend she was fine.

If that's fine, pass me the Scotch.