In Treatment

Frankly, I'm tired of the portrayal of therapy in film and television. What many don't get about it is that explosive confessionals and catharsis are rare and short-lived. Most therapy involves weeks of monotonous discussion with one person finally feeling comfortable enough to unload all the baggage they think others don't want to hear. Often times, not because it's scandalous or unique, but rather because it's so mundane others choose not to hear it. What one person shrugs off, another needs to talk about. Therapists are there to understand that.

Recently, HBO premiered another show - Tell Me You Love Me - that featured therapy as central element to its story. I honestly didn't make it past the fourth episode of the show. I was intrigued to see an adult drama that dealt maturely with relationships and sexuality. Unfortunately, HBO still hasn't made that show. The sexuality devolved into erotica meant more to titillate than to tell you about the characters expressing it, and the characters became little more than an embodiment of their emotional issues. The show rarely explored their jobs, their hobbies or their friends, other than as an excuse to show that they or their relationship are fucked up rather than how all these things relate in an actual person's - a fully developed character's - life.

So here we are again with In Treatment. You can tell who HBO considers its core audience to be when they premiere two shows featuring upper-middle class yuppies and thirtysomethings in therapy in less than six months. Well, minus the upper-middle class part, I guess I fit that demographic, so I suppose their marketing department is on the right track.

Still, In Treatment, featuring Gabriel Byrne as Paul, falls into the same trap as Tell Me You Love Me in its view of characters in emotional crisis, only more so due to its format. It consists entirely of individuals in their therapy sessions, which is a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario for a story about therapy. If it's to be genuine, you focus on the insecurity, the inability to communicate, the length of time it takes for a therapist to earn the trust of their patient. If it's to be interesting to a mass audience, you focus on scandal and the lascivious parts of patients' lives. What's more, by only seeing patients in this setting, and not another second of their lives, you are forced to see them only as the issues they're dealing with. They don't have the ability to develop into complete characters. To be fair though, talented writers can strike a balance I'm sure. Unfortunately, I don't think In Treatment's creators are up to the challenge.

The lead off episode is the biggest indication of this. In its focus on Laura - played by the beautiful Melissa George - the show slips right into Nip\Tuck territory as she tells of a night on the town running away from a fight with her boyfriend into a bathroom sexual confrontation with a stranger, before telling her therapist she has secretly been in love with him for more than a year. To be fair, Paul's response is very true to what you might expect - an infatuation with your therapist is very normal, you can tell me things you can't tell others, and there are boundaries in place that make it impossible, which makes it a safe infatuation for someone with commitment issues, etc... - but, it's hardly a strong starting point for a show whose tone and deliberate pace indicate the creators' aim to explore the lives of people in crisis meaningfully.

Regardless, the biggest problem with the show is its nightly half-hour format, as its aired over nine weeks. (God, I hope I got that detail wrong.) I'm curious enough based on the subject matter to check back in on the show and see if I've given it short shrift with this write up, but 45 episodes, one a night for nine weeks is a helluva commitment. And I got shit to do. So, I guess that leaves marketing 1-for-1 in this case.

If you'd like to check this show out and let me know how wrong I am about it, it airs on HBO, M-F from 9:30-10 with frequent replays.