Tonight brought the finales of the Tuesday night weepers: Private Practice and Parenthood. Now, I’ll admit that these shows don’t have a lot in common except for their time slot and that they attempt to make viewers cry every week. I’ll also admit that I’ve seen nearly every episode of Parenthood (save for some season 3 episodes which I skipped out of frustration with the show) and really like it, while I have never seen a full episode of Private Practice. [Although I know basically what’s going on with the show, and could easily follow it.] The big difference in the shows may be quality, as Private Practice has been general lousy throughout its run while Parenthood is one of the most underrated shows on TV. Anyway, onward for the reviews…
Private Practice…This was the series finale (we don’t know if Parenthood will be back next year or not) and so it should have been a really great episode. But the show made the bizarre decision to devote the majority of its last episode’s energy in trying to get Taye Diggs and Audra MacDonald back together, even though Audra MacDonald has not been on the show in years (and the show hasn’t asked fans to care about this relationship for far longer, even pairing up Taye Diggs and Kate Walsh at one point). There was also a half-hearted wedding for the lead character, but this was over with in the first five minutes, and that was the extent of her interesting scenes. Other low key plot developments: someone got cancer, Benjamin Bratt learned to be okay with his daughter’s relationship (really? this is a series-finale development?), one of the grandkids from Parenthood learned to live without Amy Brenneman (man, these shows really are connected), and one guy found out that having young kids is really hard. I just can’t help but feel that if I’d really watched this show and invested time in it, I would have felt disappointed with such a bland, low-energy finale, and would have felt mystified that the only plot line that seemed to have any juice was in getting a couple back together that started off the show divorced, and only occasionally hooked up. Grade for the Series Finale: D
Parenthood…A good example of a show doing cancer right. Whereas Private Practice’s cancer scenes felt manipulative and like situations that would only happen on TV, Parenthood is coming off one of their strongest seasons by showing Monica Potter’s Kristina dealing with breast cancer in a realistic way. Tonight continued that great story-line and even included Monica Potter (who is a Julia Roberts lookalike) in a Pretty Woman-esque hooker wig. But where Parenthood really excels is in getting you to root for characters even as they make decisions you don’t agree with. Like I think it was a big mistake for Joel and Julia to legally adopt Victor (a character who’s caused them nothing but grief until this episode and one that their biological daughter begged them not to adopt). It might have been an even bigger mistake for Sarah to “choose” Hank over Mark, but now Mark can finally get on with his life, and maybe find a woman he’s not better than in every way (maybe one with, you know, youth, good looks, a job, an education, or any asset at all besides two grown kids and over active tear ducts). And I hated that Crosby was forced to eat crow from his mother-in-law (who’s been acting like a child for a weeks), but I do like that he and Jasmine are expecting their second child together. Still, this was an awfully cheesy, feel-good finale for the show, and I think the creators might have made a mistake by not giving us any loose plot threads or cliff hangers. I hope it’s not the series finale, but it sure felt like one. Grade for the season (series?) finale: B+