Last night, HBO kicked off a 9-week television experiment called In Treatment, a series (event?) based on the hit Israeli series “Be’Tipul.” The series centers around psychoanalyst Paul (Gabriel Byrne), and the patients who come to see him each week. The show is airing on HBO Monday through Friday with each day dedicated to a half-hour session for a specific patient. Monday night is Laura, Tuesday night Alex, Wednesday night Sophie, Thursday Jake & Amy, and Friday, Paul goes to speak to his own psychoanalyst, played by Dianne Wiest. Very cool concept, right? But is 22.5 hours of 2 person conversations going to be enough to keep this show sustainable for the duration of it’s lengthy run?
If the show’s first two episodes are any indication, the answer is a resounding yes. The entire first week is already On Demand, so I helped myself to my first doses of Lauren and Alex. What is immediately exciting and so riveting about this program is that you really cannot judge it on an episode by episode basis. The show is too well-written and too well-acted to be that simple. Instead, each episode chips away a little bit at the mystery and personality of each character, including Paul. Lauren, played by the newly brunette Melissa George (you may remember her as the evil Lauren Reed from Alias), is stuck in a romantic rut, as she doesn’t love the man she has and loves the one man she knows she can’t hav (I don’t want to give anything more away!). Alex, played perfectly by Blair Underwood, is a Navy pilot with a penchant for perfection, but his armor is beginning to show a crack or two.
This show will not be for everyone. It’s perhaps the most uncinematic television series I’ve ever seen, which is certainly not a positive. This would work equally as well as a play or a book– the medium of film adds nothing to it, as its literally just filmed conversation. But doggone it, the conversations are too engrossing not to get hooked. You want to know who these people are– you want to tune in each week to see if they’re ok, how they’re developing, what happened to them during the other 6 days since you saw them last. And if you don’t care about a certain character, skip that night of the week. That’s another great aspect of the series– it’s really 5 series wrapped into 1, so you can sign up for any or all of the characters, whoever interests you the most.
I found Alex to be much more intriguing than Lauren, not because of their lifestyles or personalities, but simply because Alex is much more closed off than Lauren. Whereas Lauren’s emotions pour out and her relationship with Paul is long established, Alex is only meeting Paul for the first time and he is far more reserved. By only hinting at the true motivations and emotions bubbling beneath his surface, Alex baits us– we simply must know more!
I can’t read the future– for all I know, this series will be boring by week 3– nine weeks is a LONG time. But at the very least, I can see myself getting sucked into at least a few of these characters, especially Paul, the most mysterious of them all, and I’m very excited to meet young Sophie tomorrow night.
Bottom line: There’s nothing else on, the show is very well-written and well-acted, the source material is a proven smash, and there’s never been another show like it on American television. If that isn’t enough to get you to make an appointment with the doc, nothing will be.
