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The babies would not stop howling. On an August afternoon, three pairs of seven-month-old twins had taken over the Los Angeles set of the new TV series Private Practice, the spinoff of Grey's Anatomy, starring Kate Walsh. Her character, Dr. Addison Montgomery, now works at a Santa Monica wellness clinic that specializes in obstetrics and pediatrics. Walsh was scheduled to work the minute the baby scene ended. But it was getting late.

For hours, the six babies had been rotated through their turns on camera like cakes in a hot oven. The moment any of them was placed into the arms of an actress playing her mother, she'd begin wailing; the instant she was taken out, she'd fall into an exhausted sleep. The episode's director, Tony Goldwyn - of the MGM Goldwyns; he's also an actor (Ghost) and film director (A Walk on the Moon) - was chomping on stick after stick of sugarless gum and trying not to tear his wavy blond hair out.

Sitting by the monitor near Goldwyn were KaDee Strickland, who was waiting to do a scene with Walsh (she plays a hospital administrator unimpressed by the clinic), and Mark Tinker, the director of episode one and another Hollywood scion, the son of TV legend Grant Tinker. "I'm going to take a double dose of my birth control tonight," Strickland drawled in her steel magnolia accent.

At 10:30 p.m., resplendent in a purple terrycloth robe and sheepskin slippers, Walsh, 40, finally hit the set. She'd been on a separate soundstage all afternoon, filming a naked dance scene. Immediately, her cast mates flocked to her. "What moves did you do?" asked a male makeup artist. "Did you do the Sprinkler?"

"Naw, I can't do it like you," Walsh said. Obligingly, he cocked one arm behind his head, stuck the other out horizontally, and danced hilariously.

"Did you do your mom?" asked co-star Paul Adelstein, who plays the clinic's pediatrician. He's been a friend of Walsh's for 15 years, since they studied acting in Chicago; she even got him a job waiting tables with her. He knows that her ma is a live wire who tried numerous professions and moved her kids through several states during Walsh's childhood. (Walsh's father left the family when she was 9 and died when she was 22.) "I should have done my mom" Walsh said. "She's fantastic, she dances like she's on strings." She demonstrated, popping her shoulders up in tiny jerks.

"My mom goes backward, like she's being pulled out of the room," said co-star Audra McDonald, a Tony-winning theatre actress. "It's like, 'Mom, come back' "

"Mine, too" Walsh said. "Did they go to the same school?" In three minutes, she had transformed a very cranky set into her personal salon. Three minutes later, however, she was dismissed - her scenes were bumped to the next day.

Private Practice is one of a slew of new TV shows that revolves around the personal and professional predicaments of middle-aged women. Glenn Close plays a scary New York litigator on Damages. On Saving Grace, Holly Hunter's police detective drinks and screws around. Of the four high-powered chicks on Women's Murder Club - cop, lawyer, reporter, medical examiner - only one is happily married. Lipstick Jungle, created by Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City), focuses on "three of New York's 50 most powerful women," all of whose personal lives are a shambles; in rival show Cashmere Mafia four female New York executives juggle careers and family. With the already-in-progress Medium and The Closer, that's a lot of overextended ladies.

Private Practice's vision of middle-aged womanhood isn't rosy, either. Walsh's character is divorced and in career crisis. McDonald's fertility specialist is newly divorced - from a partner in the clinic (Taye Diggs) whom she sees every day. Amy Breneman's psychiatrist, also divorced, stalks her ex-husband.

I tell Walsh I'm uneasy that these shows suggest that powerful women must have terrible personal lives. "People hated Addison at first. Until they took layers off her and showed her as vulnerable and flawed," Walsh agreed. "Personally, I vacillate between accepting my flaws and shortcomings, and wanting to better myself. But I do think that women in positions of power still have to deal with being perceived as a bitch. Men don't get that.

"Someone once said to me, 'You have to be willing to be hated and misunderstood if you're going to get what you want,' " Walsh continued. "That doesn't mean you have to be a terrible person, or cold or ruthless. It's just that, if you're a female, you can't be both successful and liked, not all the time. As women, people expect us to be mothers. At work, in the home, everywhere. We're not valued as much for succeeding elsewhere."

Walsh is certainly liked. Adelstein said, "It's really nice to be around Kate all the time because - because it's just nice to be around Kate." Brenenman praised her "generosity, wit and dignity. She keeps her side of the street clean." And Strickland said, "I find myself being a little creepy, because I can't take my eyes off her. She cares very much about the way her character is communicated, and the way the show is going to be executed."

That was certainly in evidence the next day, while filming the scene that was bumped the night before, a confrontation between Strickland and Walsh's characters. They had four lines of dialogue each - which after those babies, should have been a breeze. But after a couple of takes, Walsh had questions. The writer, Mike Ostrowski, was summoned; one of the producers stepped in. "I don't understand why Addison is being so accusatory," I heard Walsh say. It's only episode two, and she knows the tone set here will carry deep into the season. Half an hour ticked by. When the episode aired, the scene was shorter than written, and far less tense.

"I got better about living in the moment in my 30s," Walsh said. "Since then I've been aware that this is it, so what are you gonna do with it? I used to be obsessed with age 10, because that's when I felt most creatively empowered - like I ruled the world. I think because it was before I knew real fear. I finally feel like I'm back at that good age, being purely creative. I'm able to really enjoy this success. If I didn't have an infrastructure that took my 20s and early 30s to get, it probably would have freaked me out. But now I can handle a lot. You get perspective."

In real life, at least, if not yet on TV.

Johanna Schneller was on location to interview Kate Walsh for the November issue of Marie Claire magazine.

Jschneller@globeandmail.com