A shrink deals with issues on HBO's 'In Treatment'

BY DIANE WERTS | diane.werts@newsday.com

3:47 PM EST, January 27, 2008

Gabriel Byrne stars as a psychotherapist in HBO's new, 'In Treatment,' debuting Jan. 28. Each episode, running five days a week, is a half hour therapy session with the same patient once a week. (HBO Photo)

It starts slowly, seems a little dull, and doesn't make much sense at first.

Just like psychotherapy.

HBO's new weeknightly half-hour drama "In Treatment" gets it. Like a series of one-act two-handers -- stage plays where just a pair of actors face off -- this sneaky little gem steadily strips away its therapy patients' emotional defenses and excuses, exposing the raw fears and paralyzing reactions beneath.

Same as with those regular visits to the shrink, "In Treatment" takes time to reveal itself. And you're never quite sure where it's headed. But you do know it keeps coming at you. Like clockwork.

The therapy session lasts only about 25 minutes here, taking place at the same time weekly with the therapist cannily played by Gabriel Byrne. On HBO tonight at 9:30, he sees a young woman (Melissa George of "Alias") feeling bullied to decide whether to marry her boyfriend. Tomorrow at 9:30, it's a cocksure Navy bomber pilot (Blair Underwood), who maintains he sleeps great despite that recent heart attack after he killed a schoolful of Iraqi kids.

Wednesday brings a top-level teen gymnast (astounding newcomer Mia Wasikowska) with a nasty habit of plowing bikes and motorcycles into other vehicles when she isn't idealizing her coach and eviscerating her mother. Thursdays may be the roughest going: A pregnant executive (Embeth Davidtz, "Schindler's List") and her furiously resentful husband (Josh Charles, "Sports Night") rage, accuse and interrogate each other while debating an abortion. By Friday, Byrne's Dr. Paul Weston starts seeing his own shrink, a former mentor (Dianne Wiest) with whom he'd broken off contact years earlier. Until he needed her.

Paul does have his needs, too. "In Treatment" draws us deeper in by cracking the protective exteriors of both partners in the therapy relationship. Though Monday's series premiere is the least compelling of the week's five introductory episodes, it crucially lays the foundation of Paul's "midlife" crisis. His most recent one, anyway. (Yet to be introduced is Michelle Forbes as the wife about whom he has his own suspicions.) But the doctor claims he's most concerned that he isn't measuring up professionally, losing patience with his patients -- to which his shrink friend Gina .listens with the same careful awareness and baloney detection we've watched Paul .employ all week.

By this time, we're doing our own shrinking. We recognize the denial, the sublimation, the perfectionism, the need for control, the misplaced hate or passion. The desire for certainties, validation, reassurance. The insistence by patients that they're not there for therapy, oh no, they don't need to talk about themselves or look inward, they seek merely affirmation or permission or "tell me what to do" verdicts.

As we see Paul listen, and reflect back on what he hears, and ask probing questions, and react to the push-back, everything becomes so obvious -- all his patients' coping strategies and their willful obliviousness to what might really be distressing them. We get to feel more insightful, maybe even better adjusted than they are. But deep down, we might also recognize more than a little of ourselves in their behavior. Consider it a free shrink session.

"In Treatment" has a scheduled nine-week run, over which we'll get to observe these patients' progression, and perhaps our own. Will it become as addictive as the Israeli show from which it's adapted? That series ("BeTipul" in Hebrew) wowed the critics, mesmerized the public and swept that country's TV awards. HBO's episodes are fairly faithfully adapted from the originals, by such big-name talent as writer-director Rodrigo Garcia ("Six Feet Under"), director Paris Barclay ("NYPD Blue") and executive producer Mark Wahlberg ("Entourage").

The audience has some work to do here, too. "In Treatment" demands attention be paid -- rapt and undivided attention -- to two people simply sitting and talking. What the series doesn't demand of its makers, conversely, is much money. No huge cast or fancy sets. The concept is so simple, in fact, it could potentially go on forever -- a minimalist franchise where new patients and other therapists come and go. The key ingredient -- personal crises -- springs eternal.

HBO's broadcast strategy is equally simple yet complex. "In Treatment" initially runs weeknights at 9:30, repeating that same night on HBO2 at 11:30. (HBO On Demand subscribers have access to all of each week's new episodes starting Monday.) Starting the second week, the previous-week session with that day's patient repeats at 9 p.m. as a refresher lead-in (11 p.m. as HBO2 lead-in). The week's episodes encore as a block on HBO2 Saturday 10 p.m.-12:30 a.m. and on HBO Sunday 6:30-9 p.m.

Confused? Seek counsel at hbo.com/intreatment.

IN TREATMENT. Psycho.therapist Gabriel Byrne chips away weekly at the determined defenses of five troubled patients. And that process chips away at his. Fascinating half-hour series premieres tonight at 9:30, continues at the same time each weeknight on HBO.