Rebecca Barry Hill's TV Eye

'Nurse Jackie' is the thinking person's 'Grey's Anatomy,' though the squirmy moments aren't as overdone.

Ew, medical dramas are so gross. You can imagine this attitude cuts out a lot of TV because just about every show ever made is set in a hospital.

But recently I decided it was time to confront my fears by watching House (Sundays, 8.30pm, TV3).

The first scene began with two kids who got an earful from the school principal. Dr House heard and said to the children (who were about 10 years old), "Who put sand in her vagina?"

And that was the end of my House-watching experiment.

Next was Grey's Anatomy, (Tuesdays, 8.30pm, TV2), which screened its umpteenth crossover episode with Private Practice (Tuesdays, 9.30pm, TV2) this week.

Having dinner first was a silly move, as Grey's is the squirmiest medical drama ever written. Now in their seventh season, the writers were obviously looking for ways to shock viewers into thinking there's still fuel in the tank.

The title of the episode was "Superfreak" but before you get all excited, the rudest bit was the treatment of a young virgin who'd accidentally inhaled a condom into her lung.

Thank God her fiance was on hand to comfort her.

"I'm gonna love opening night, okay?" he said as he hugged her.

Ew!

The point of a crossover between Grey's and its less interesting spin-off is of course to try to cross-pollinate ratings and thrill viewers by seeing the parallel worlds collide.

This meant having Derek's sister Amelia (Caterina Scorsone), a new character on Private Practice, turn up at Seattle Grace, to Meredith's complete surprise. See? There are some things Mer and Der are still discovering about each other. Including the existence of family members.

During this lovely episode we also got to see a brain tumour being removed and a traumatised Cristina slicing into a dead man's chest after protesting that she wasn't up to it. Neither was I. I really could've used a condom to hyperventilate into.

But the worst was a patient with a rare virus that caused his skin to break out in huge, disfiguring warts. His hands had turned into horns.

Even Lexie was trying not to gag as she treated him. As Bailey removed the horns during surgery, a massive black spider crawled out.

Eeewww!

I'd much rather be treated by a drug addict like Nurse Jackie than check in to their creepy crawly hospital. The TV3 show, starring The Sopranos' Edie Falco and directed by Steve Buscemi, is the thinking person's Grey's and returns with its third series on Monday.

It's hard to imagine where the show could go now that Jackie's dirty little secrets are out in the open, but at least there doesn't appear to be a contest between the writers as to who can incorporate the wackiest disease.

It aims for a similarly quirky tone as Grey's but the darker moments - like when Jackie snorts drugs at work or argues with her husband - are not as heavy on the squirmy dialogue.

The character of Zoey, previously shy and innocent, now provides the comic relief, this week dropping such memorable exclamations as "cluster fudge" and posing "a sensitivity question about boys with piercings".

Even guest star Jessica Hecht (Susan from Friends) was hilarious. As her Valium kicked in and her chicken-poxed boys looked on, she opined, "You know how I get paid? In urine."

That kind of squirmy I can handle.

But even Nurse Jackie resorts to that medical drama cliché whereby patients divulge personal information to the staff. In this case, it was Jackie sharing a sandwich with a guy whose son had just died.

At least it wasn't as squirmy as the conversation between the disfigured man's wife on Grey's who wondered aloud to Mark if "love isn't enough anymore". It's not. You've also got to have a cast iron stomach.

-TimeOut