In Treatment

Right, so as you may have gathered from the last post and comments, I was so taken with the first episode of In Treatment I decided to blast through it online (and still have every intention of watching it again in the upcoming weeks on Sky Arts). I haven't been as taken with a show since last year where I blew through the first 2 series of 30 Rock in under a week. Each "week" of the show (it's a therapist's session, showed in double time - 25 mins rather than 50 - once a day) has the same patients timeslot each week, but with the twist of Gabriel Byrne seeing his therapist on a Friday. It's being shown like that here (every night at 10pm) on Sky Arts, with an omnibus on Sunday nights.

The first series, well, it's exceptional. Melissa George as Laura is a stunning piece of work, if I were putting her up against supporting women in theatrical films last year, she'd top the lot. That her and the divine Eileen Atkins in Cranford lost to Laura Dern in Recount at the Golden Globes is annoying because they took the time to recognise them, but then went for the showiest, most mannered, least natural turn of the lot from the bigger name. The couples therapy on the Thursday (with Embeth Davidtz) is the least interesting of the lot and Diane Wiest as his therapist Gina winning the Emmy is a bit random as she's the third best supporting woman on the show behind George and Mia Wasikowska's depressed gymnast Sophie. Great shout recognising Glynn Turman's performance though, his episode was absolutely superb and trumps any of the oscar nominated supporting actor turns last year.

Byrne won the Globe and it's not difficult to see why because they do love the centrepiece of something new (he and Paquin in True Blood won this year, Hamm for Mad Men and Close for Damages last year). He's note-perfect, showing such warmth and ease with Sophie, such restraint with Laura, then lack of it with his other patients. The sessions with Gina work two ways, they give him a chance to vent and do more dramatically, but knowing his thoughts and outbursts then makes his subtle reactions in the next week's sessions more palpable.

The second series is a strange one, it doesn't have the high points acting wise of George and Wasikowska, and lacks the inherently arresting nature of the Laura storyline bleeding into everything else, but overall I think the second one is more balanced. There is super acting from all the patients, and the surprise for me was Hope Davis, as I've never been much of a fan of hers and have struggled to see why she has the reputation of being the Indie Queen. She's excellent here though, shedding her usual uptight persona and delivering a rounded, soulful effort. Alison Pill is extremely fine, Aaron Shaw as the little boy is adawwwable and John Mahoney is the best I've ever seen him. Wiest is probably better than the first series but Byrne goes into overdrive in some of his sessions with her.

This one feels a bit more ... manufactured if anything. Whereas in the first series the endings of all of the storylines were staggered, here it is very much set up that the final week is very much about all of them stopping or continuing with therapy and it's not difficult to guess which way everyone's going to go. This is actually fairly true of the first series in general, you can sense a lot of where they're going to take it but it doesn't really matter. With the second it's more the overall mechanics of the storytelling that are apparant rather than the specific direction their problems will go in. If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not, both series were brilliant, but those are just observations.

Anyway, they've now exhausted the two original series on Israeli television this is adapted from so if there's going to be a third it's going to cost a LOT more for HBO to hire the writers and keep Byrne happy, and there's not much of a ratings incentive for them to do so. The classic case of a first rate, critically acclaimed show that not many people in America are watching and that will prove its downfall sooner or later. I'm DYING to see the original (which used to be on HBO's website, but alas no more) as it has Ayelet Zurer from Angels and Demons and Lior Ashkenazi from Late Marriage in it, but that may take a while. Watching this (obsessively ) has been a delight though and I'll continue to watch it over the next couple of months to see what I missed the first time through.