Having suffered through the two-hour melodramatic ordeal of the Grey's Anatomy premiere last Thursday, I was less than excited to jump into Season 2 of its California-set spin-off. But I have to say, with the exception of a few bumps and bruises, Private Practice is in relatively stable condition.

The first season was so empty of plot, there wasn't much to catch up on, so the premiere felt less like catching up than starting over. And the latter is supposedly what the show is all about as Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) is settling into her new sun-filled life as the chief OB-GYN doc at Oceanside Wellness, an impossibly well-decorated clinic in Santa Monica owned and run by Addison's med-school friends, Sam and Naomi Bennett (Taye Diggs and Audra McDonald).

The Bennetts are still playing the should-we-divorce? game while Addison continues her flirtation with Dr. Pete Wilder, the hot alterna-doc played by the always reliable Tim Daly. Seeing these two flirt has none of the sad masochism that's become Meredith and McDreamy's calling card; and, come to think of it, Addison is a actually pretty decent female lead. She's strong, she's beautiful, and hasn't a stitch of Meredith's pathetic and immature tendency toward self-destruction. This makes a big difference.

The cast is actually a rock-solid ensemble. My heart is warmed at the mere sight of Amy Brenneman's poofy hair making a return to prime time, Daly bouncing back from his brutal Sopranos demise, and Broadway alums Diggs and McDonald getting a long-deserved steady TV gig.

And at times, Diggs even gets to put his Stella-getting-groove-back looks aside and be funny: "If I could get just one guy to have a colonoscopy without a complaint ... like I'm happy to be all up in there."

In fact, the collective range of acting chops on Practice makes the story lines seem more viable than they probably should be. This episode has the do-gooding docs tackling not one but two moral-outrage cases -- an HIV-infected teen whose parents never told him he had the disease; the parents of an ill boy getting pregnant just to use the baby's chord blood to treat him -- but somehow my eyes never made it to the back of head. Go figure.

Overall, Practice has a more polished energy this season, one that's befitting of the caliber of talent Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes managed to wrangle for her first post-Grey's outing.

And really, after having to hear the Seattle Grace docs bitch and moan and drool platitudes all over each other last week, Practice feels like a refreshing breeze off the Santa Monica pier. Let's hope those mopey clouds from the north don't roll in anytime soon.

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