Despite crazy-eyed Scientologist Tom Cruise’s best efforts, psychotherapy ain’t going away anytime soon — especially off your TV set.
Though Dr. Melfi is no longer enabling Tony Soprano’s baser impulses, HBO has one-upped itself with In Treatment, a show that does away with all that pesky plot stuff to focus entirely on the couch sessions. But while this may be a fantastic show for drama teachers looking for two-person scenes to assign their students, it comes off too stagy on the small screen. Though In Treatment uses exposition as character development — it takes a while to parse what’s actually going on from what the patients are saying — the show favours insight over action, unlike last fall’s Tell Me You Love Me (also on HBO/TMN), which bolstered couples therapy with controversially graphic sex scenes.
Airing weekdays, In Treatment’s four patients each get a day to themselves. There’s Dirty Sexy Money’s Blair Underwood as a tormented Iraq war vet; Alias’ Melissa George as a manipulataive nymphomaniac; newcomer Mia Wasikowska as an aspiring Olympic gymnast with suicidal tendencies; and Sports Night’s Josh Charles and South African actress Embeth Davidtz as a bickering couple. Meanwhile, on Fridays, their therapist (played by Gabriel Byrne) discusses his patients and his crumbling marriage — to Battlestar Galactica’s ever-awesome Michelle Forbes — with his own doc, played by Dianne Weist.
Based on the popular Israeli series Be Tipul, In Treatment has garnered considerable acclaim over its opening weeks —largely due to a typically bravura turn from Underwood as a fighter pilot who accidentally bombed a madrasah. He’s a pleasure to watch, as is Byrne, but In Treatment’s all-tell and no-show ploy still made me pass out on the couch.
IN TREATMENT AIRS MON-FRI, 8:30PM ON TMN
Shrink wrap
Gabriel Byrne’s Dr. Paul Weston, of course, is but one in a long line of television therapists. So let’s lie down, take a deep breath and analyze some of his fictional peers.
Robert Hartley, The Bob Newhart Show: Newhart’s classic ’70s series laid the ground rules for sitcom therapy — make the doctor even more screwed-up than the patients. But given Bob’s button-down persona, his repressed psychologist still mostly played straight man during each weekly group session.
Marvin Monroe, The Simpsons: Springfield’s resident psychiatrist debuted in the first-season classic “There’s No Disgrace Like Home” where his plan to use shock therapy on the Simpsons went horribly, and hilariously, awry. He later apparently died — see: The Dr. Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital in “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” — but reappeared in season 15 claiming to have just been sick.
Frasier Crane, Cheers, Frasier: TV’s best-known psychiatrist ruled the airwaves for an astounding 20 years, first as Diane’s fussy barfly fiancé and later on his own eponymous show as a Seattle call-in radio host. But given how judgmental Frasier often was, he couldn’t have been very helpful — except maybe in comparison to brother Niles or ex-wife Lilith.
Tobias Fünke, Arrested Development: We never actually see Tobias practise as he lost his licence after he gave unnecessary CPR to a man who wasn’t ill. Probably for the best since you really can’t rely on a psychiatrist unaware of his own Freudian slips.
Phil McGraw, The Dr. Phil Show: Oprah’s former pet was always obnoxious, but the no-longer-licensed talk-show host outdid himself by bum-rushing Britney’s hospital room before she threw his fat ass out. He was widely criticized for the attempted exploitation, but USC’s Dr. Jeffrey Sugar boasted the best slam:?”There’s a difference between being detained involuntarily for psychological treatment and being forced to endure Dr. Phil involuntarily.”