KEY POINTS:
Some people with addictive personalities need only have a shandy and they're on their way to being a lush. Me, I'm susceptible to soap operas. One glimpse of Emmerdale or Home and Away and I'm hooked.
This means I have to be careful about exposure to new soaps.
I already have a crippling five-night-a-week Shortland Street habit. So I always steered clear of another hit medical soap, Grey's Anatomy, as I knew I could fall for it.
I managed to swear-off McDreamy and McSteamy and Meredith, but my resolve weakened with the spin-off, Private Practice, which follows another character, Dr Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh). I was sucked in by the introductory show Come Rain or Shine (TV2 tonight at 9.40pm) - an hour-long People-magazine primer on the main character which told me all I needed to know to jump straight in to Private Practice. For those not familiar with Grey's Anatomy, Montgomery is a top-notch baby specialist who was married to Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), a fellow surgeon at Seattle Grace hospital. Her marriage falls apart and in an attempt to mend her broken heart, she leaves Seattle and moves to LA to join a private practice started by her best friend.
The first episode of Private Practice opens with her first day in the job where she meets her angst-prone colleagues. They are no longer tough, ambitious surgeons like the one played by Sandra Oh. Instead they are what the New York Times calls "one of the most depressing portrayals of the female condition since The Bell Jar". There is angry Naomi Bennett (Audra McDonald), whose marriage has just split up and who locks herself into the bathroom to scoff cake. There is psychiatrist Violet Turner (Amy Brenneman) who is stalking her now married ex-boyfriend.
The men in the office, and the patients, are just as screwy. "Is it weird to have sex with someone who wants you to call her momma?" asks one of the doctors.
Star Kate Walsh subscribes to the fidgeting school of acting. Why act when you can chew your lips, jiggle your hips, twirl your hair and start sentences and not finish them to feign awkwardness and thus, vulnerability. The squirming and restlessness is part of Montgomery's pre-menopausal neurotic schtick. Here's a successful, attractive 39-year-
old without a man or children. Of course, she can't be happy. "Viewers don't need to be feminists to yearn to turn the clock back 30 years to when Ms. magazine had half a million readers and the Equal Rights Amendment seemed on the brink of ratification", mourned the New York Times. No one said soaps had to be good for you. Is there a 12-step programme for soap addicts? I'm hooked.
* Come Rain Or Shine: From Grey's Anatomy To Private Practice screens tonight on TV2 at 9.40pm. Private Practice debuts tomorrow on TV2 at 8.30pm.