Addicted To Therapy

... on television, that is.

Is there a 12-Step program to get over therapy-centric television?  And no worries, I am not talking Dr. Phil or others in the talk show ilk... and oh, it's mostly fake.

It all started innocently and slyly enough with the occasional, but always interesting, therapy sessions between the delightfully monotone Dr. Jennifer Melfi and Tony Soprano on, of course, HBO's The Sopranos.  Next, we shifted over to Showtime's documentary series, Sexual Healing with Dr. Laura Berman... and of late, it's been back to HBO and the fictional couch.

Although it wrapped in October, we're still working our way through the first season of Tell Me You Love Me.  It has taken so long to get through this couples therapy show since each episode is pretty emotionally draining (Todd opts for the more succinct "depressing").  We took the holidays "off" and now  we're on an "episode every other week" schedule.  While it's hard to call it "entertaining," it is pretty fascinating and quite well-done. 

The show got a lot of attention because of the explicit sex (we no longer have to imagine what sex with Ian Somerhalder, formerly Boone of Lost, would look like!).  I admit that even through a half-dozen episodes, I still find them jaw-dropping. I think it's just the juxtaposition... not very often you get softcore porn in the midst of a quality drama.  The sex scenes are (pardon the pun) very revealing... while the extent and length of them might be a tad gratuitous, they tell us a lot about the character and move along the plot.   

I'm guessing this next show will be more therapy, less sex and nudity...

Last night, HBO premiered a new series... In Treatment.

It is an interesting premise, but it's probably a good thing we got that new TiVo expander. It's a half-hour nightly drama series... that's 5 nights a week for 9 weeks! 

For 4 of the nights, it will be the doctor (played by Gabriel Byrne) dishing out the advice. Each night features a different patient.  For example, every Tuesday is a session with Alex (Blair Underwood), a Navy pilot recently home from Iraq.

On Fridays, the tables are turned and it's "physician heal thyself" with Byrne's character off to his own therapy session (with Dianne Wiest).

Other cast members (at least that I am aware of going into the show) are Josh Charles (of TV's Sports Night and the movie Threesome) as one half of a troubled marriage (the Thursday "appointment")... and Michelle Forbes (Battlestar Galactica and 24) as Byrne's wife.

I haven't had a chance to watch the first episode yet (nor do I know when that'll be), but I suspect it will be good and I'm not sure there's been original programming on HBO that I haven't liked.

I shouldn't really be too intimidated quantity/time-wise.  The schedule is really no different from a daytime soap... even a tad less, given that a hour-long soap would notch about 40 "TiVo minutes" and this should come in under 30 minutes even without commercials.

Why this addiction to these shows?  I guess it is vicarious therapy... and while I won't suggest I wouldn't benefit from therapy (who wouldn't!?!), it could just be that these shows make me feel a whole lot better about my life, my mental health and my relationship!