The Cure for the 'Mad Men' Void: 'In Treatment'

The secrets we keep

The lies we tell

The truth we hide

It all comes out.

Season 3 Trailer

The intense, almost claustrophobic HBO therapy drama, In Treatment returns for its third season on Monday October 25 at 9 p.m., and just in time, as far as I'm concerned, because I’ll be anxiously using sessions with Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) to fill the philosophical/intellectual entertainment void that Mad Men left behind in the wake of the conclusion of its too brief fourth season. (Ironically, the advertising copy for this season's In Treatment -- listed above -- sounds like it could also be applied to Mad Men.)

For the uninitiated, In Treatment is a series of regular “appointments” for each character. There are new characters each season, with the exception of Paul who has been in all the episodes. You watch that character’s session on his/her day/time each week, watching all the patients' sessions or just the ones that happen to interest you. At the end of the “week,” Paul visits his own therapist and reflects on what’s been happening.

Here’s the schedule for the sessions/installments:

Monday

9 p.m., Sunil: A retired math professor from Bengal, who moved in with his son and his son’s American wife in New York City, is struggling with the recent death of his wife.

9:30 p.m. Frances (Debra Winger!): A recently divorced actress can’t seem to remember her lines and has been experiencing anxiety because her sister, like their mother, is dying of breast cancer.

Tuesday

9 p.m. Jesse: The HBO write-up for Jesse says he’s “a gay teen, full of creativity and angst” who “wrestles with his identity and his relationship with his adoptive parents.”

9:30 p.m. Paul: The therapist himself submits to his own therapy from Adele (Amy Ryan from The Office) because he wants her to give him a prescription for sleeping pills, only Adele makes him confront the skeletons in his closet.

Season 3 Preview

HBO Teases with 'In Treatment' Promo

Season 3 Tease

The new promo from HBO for the third season of the intimate talk therapy drama In Treatment gives us no insight into what the new season may bring, other than a tan sofa with four red toss pillows artfully perched on either side.

The third season of the series, filming now, is supposed to star not only the wonderful Gabriel Byrne as the main character, Dr. Paul Weston, but also Amy Ryan (from The Office) who'll be Paul's therapist, replacing Dianne Wiest who won an Emmy for her role as Paul’s therapist Gina. Additionally, Debra Winger will be one of Paul’s patients.

No formal air date has been announced.

'In Treatment' Greenlit for Season Three

Remember several months ago when those who have a particular affinity for the insightful, and, at times emotionally sharp HBO therapy drama In Treatment were sending bars of Irish Spring soap to lobby HBO execs to renew the show with its Irish star, Gabriel Byrne, in the leading role as Dr. Paul Weston?

Don't know if it was the strong scent of the soap or not, but HBO recently announced that In Treatment will have a third season. Three cheers for intelligent dramas. According to Reuters, the show will start shooting early next year in New York.

Image credit: HBO.

The Emmys: Who I Want to Win

I’m really bad at predicting Emmy winners, as I oftentimes allow my own personal preferences to cloud my judgment. Plus, it’s so very subjective this whole picking of winners thing. It’s really based on what you watch and what kinds of shows you like personally.

If you're not into sci-fi, for example, you won't give a hoot about Lost. Some people hate the slow-moving, subtle Mad Men and think it's overhyped. (I know, it's hard to believe, but the haters are out there.) You really don't know how many of those folks are Emmy voters. That’s why I think it’s difficult to prognosticate, with any degree of accuracy, for whom the folks in the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will vote.


So this is not a list of predicted winners. It’s my list of who I think SHOULD win. Totally biased. Based on my preferences alone. An academy of one:

Best Comedy Series: The Office. I know, conventional wisdom says that 30 Rock’s a shoo-in, and I do love the Divine Ms Fey, but I thought that the Michael Scott Paper Company story arc, where Michael left Dunder Mifflin, was fantastic and rejuvenated a show that’s been around for a while.

Best Lead Actress, Comedy: Tina Fey, 30 Rock. The Academy loves Fey, as do I.

Best Lead Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock. Hands down. He’s wickedly funny in this role. Last season, his scenes with Salma Hayek ("El Generalissimo") were hilarious.

Best Drama Series: Mad Men. This is the toughest category of them all. Seriously, it’s loaded with so many stellar entries. My heart wants Lost, as last season re-oriented the series around a new premise (moving from "Let's get off this island" to "We gotta go back") and was wonderfully steeped in religious and literary references -- even the time travel thing grew on me, but given that the voters base their votes on only one or two episodes (I can’t remember if it’s one or two), I don’t think Lost fares well when viewed out of context and seen by people who don’t already understand what’s going on. A stand-alone episode of Mad Men, however, is much more relatable. Mad Men was indeed extremely strong and smart in its second season. Plus there's Jon Hamm and January Jones goodness to enjoy.

Best Lead Actress, Drama: Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men. This is a category for which I have no real clue as to who the Academy voters will chose. None. But I’m rooting for Moss who has played the complex Peggy Olson character so very earnestly and believably.

Best Lead Actor, Drama: Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment. I have my favorites – Hamm and Hugh Laurie from House – but based on what I saw, Byrne was exceptional in the second season, particularly in the episode where his father died. Byrne provided a raw performance for which he deserves to be rewarded.

The only other category in which I’m very interested is the Best Supporting Actor, Drama for which I’ll pulling for Michael Emerson from Lost who plays the exquisite personification of evil that is Benjamin Linus. Go Ben!

For what shows, actresses, actors are you rooting to win on Sunday night?

Image credit: ABC.

'In Treatment' in Danger of Being Canceled?

What the heck is wrong with the folks at HBO?

In the past few years they've lost The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Six Feet Under. They've attempted to buck up their roster of shows with the fabulous Big Love (one of the most unique shows on TV right now) and True Blood (although I don't do vampire). But Curb Your Enthusiasm has been AWOL for eons and Entourage has been wildly uneven, though I still tune in like a bad habit.

HBO's once cutting-edge programming is facing stiff competition. On FX in the form of the pitch-black Rescue Me. On Showtime in the form of the brand-spankin' new Edie Falco-driven Nurse Jackie and Toni Collette's United States of Tara, along with other shows such as Dexter, Weeds and Californication. HBO famously took a pass on the award-winning buzzy Mad Men when Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner pitched it to the premium channel. Now Don Draper is seen on AMC, not HBO.

And here HBO has this wonderfully complex, emotionally wrought drama, In Treatment, for which its lead actor, Gabriel Byrne, has won a Golden Globe for his role, which has also been lauded by TV critics. It just completed its second wonderful season and, in the wake of unimpressive ratings (about 1.6 million on average, Broadcasting & Cable reports), HBO execs have placed the therapy drama on the bubble. The announcement of whether the show will continue for a third season will be made this week.

Fans of In Treatment -- perhaps learning from Medium's experience (an NBC exec said there hadn't been any outward expression of love for the program, so it was axed, only to have CBS snap it up) -- aren't taking the precarious situation that faces the fictional Dr. Paul Weston sitting down. According to Newsday, fans are encouraging fellow In Treatment supporters to send boxes of Irish Spring soap (seriously) to HBO's HQ. Why soap? Because Byrne's Irish, I guess. Folks who enjoyed NBC's Lipstick Jungle recently tried to save the Brooke Shields show from cancellation by sending tubes of lipstick to NBC, but didn't succeed. (Television Without Pity had a good piece about fan campaigns to save shows, some which worked, some which didn't.)

As far as In Treatment goes, HBO execs would be foolish to let the exquisitely executed, intelligent drama go, especially with Byrne -- and several of the other supporting castmates from this season -- poised for near-certain Emmy nominations. I thought HBO was supposed to be just the right home for that kind of show. Isn't that why I subscribe to it?

Image credit: HBO.

'In Treatment:' Incredibly Insightful, Incredibly Depressing

I dedicated my Pop Culture & Politics column this week to In Treatment and how, at the root of all the HBO show's patients' problems seems to be flawed parenting, which, as the parent of three young kids, is frightening.

But the drama -- which gives you half-hour glimpses into the therapy sessions of five patients (including the therapist, Paul Weston, himself) -- does more than make me hope that my flawed child-rearing idiosyncrasies aren't going to send my kids to a therapists' sofa in a decade or two. It makes you assess and think about your own life and wonder, "Am I doing THAT? Do I respond to situations like this patient?"

There's a college-aged cancer patient who won't take care of herself and won't tell her family because she doesn't want to burden them, a disgraced CEO with panic attacks and childhood guilt, a couple that's divorcing that has a suffering son who thinks he's responsible for the family's break-up and a fortysomething attorney who's angry that she never got married and had children.

Then there's the therapist, played by the immensely talented, Emmy winning Gabriel Byrne, who lives a lonely life in Brooklyn, while his children and his ex-wife live in Maryland. His oftentimes combative sessions with his therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest) are, by far, the ones to which I look forward the most each week.

While HBO may have cornered the market on death with its provocative Six Feet Under, and put its stamp on the life of thirtysomething single gals in NYC with Sex and the City, I think the network can now claim the therapy arena as well. In Treatment makes the therapy sessions on other shows look positively amateurish by comparison.

Image credit: HBO.

'Desperate' Mondays: Rose's Turn

Maybe it's because I was spoiled by three consecutive days of thrilling baseball in the form of the Boston Red Sox kicking the New York Yankees' collective behinds. Ground rule doubles. Fastballs at 99 mph. A grand slam. STEALING HOME PLATE. What's better than that?

Maybe it's because HBO's In Treatment (which I'm going to write about in a separate blog item) is so gripping and exquisite, even when you're watching nothing but people talking.

Maybe it's because many other TV shows have been so good lately, such as Lost, Rescue Me, House, The Office, experiencing a rebirth of sorts with Michael's upstart company. (I'm currently irritated that Grey's Anatomy has become a showcase for dead and dying kid scenes. Seriously, as the mom of young kids, I can't take these kinds of scenes each week. I'm begging ya Shonda, please have Dr. Bailey get out of pediatrics, NOW!)

Whatever the cause, I do know that I've lost my Desperate Housewives' mojo. I've been writing about the show on this blog after each new episode but have been rapidly losing interest, despite the fact that the show's continuing to get good ratings. I, personally, don't find it a "must-see" anymore. Stories are becoming repetitive, characters too predictable.

How many times is Bree going to be betrayed by her husband/lover? (Rex cheated. The creepy pharmacist guy wooed Bree after killing Rex. Orson swooped in, knowing full well he'd already tried to kill Bree's neighbor Mike. I could go on and on here. Bree's unlucky in love. We've got it. But how many times are we going to see her go to war with the man who she once loved?)

How many episodes are going to feature the theme that people routinely hide things from one another? (Wasn't that the theme of the pilot episode, that Mary Alice was hiding her pain when her life looked pristine and perfect from the outside just before she committed suicide? Katherine "confessing" that she was hiding her desire for Mike to commit to her? Duh. Of course she'd want commitment. It would be out of character for her not to.)

How many times are we going to witness one spouse get jealous of another? (Tom getting upset that Lynette took a shower at the office? Like Lynette's really going to cheat on him with Carlos. Tom is feeling emasculated -- AGAIN -- because Lynette is working and comes home tired and uninterested in sex. Tom's looking to validate himself, make himself feel better. Why not have him buy a midlife crisis-mobile. Oh, wait. Already did that. How about have him join a rock band? Did that too. Flirt with a horny neighborhood housewife? Now he can check that off his list.)

Bah!

So now, if the heavy-handed foreshadowing at the end of this episode goes where I think it's going to go, we're going to see nutty, lying Dave try to kill Susan and Mike's son in order to pay Susan back for accidentally killing Dave's first wife and child? An injured or dead/dying kid, what is this, Grey's Anatomy? Good grief. Maybe they should just call an end to the season right now so the writers can re-group.

Image credit: ABC.

Golden Globe TV Nominations: Mad Men!

Finally! January Jones, who regularly knocks it out of the park as the betrayed suburban housewife and mother Betty Draper on Mad Men, finally got some props from the people in the business of doling out awards.

When the Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning, Jones, along with the delicious Jon Hamm who plays her cad of a husband Don Draper, were officially placed on the shortlist to receive awards, as was their AMC show in the drama category. (Hamm won for best actor the last time around, as did Mad Men for best show, but because of the writers' strike and the canceled awards ceremony, Hamm was robbed of his chance to make a speech.)

Other TV standout nominations: HBO's intense therapy drama, In Treatment, received the most award nominations of any show at five, including one for the therapist in chief, Gabriel Byrne and one for best drama.

Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and 30 Rock are up for awards in the comedy arena, up against fellow NBC show The Office.

Brothers & Sisters' matriarch, Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths, who plays Fields' daughter, were nominated in the drama category.

House, as well as its star, Hugh Laurie also received drama nominations.

Shut out of the award nominations: Anyone from Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and, one of my favorites, Big Love.

Anyone left off the list who you think was robbed this season?

Image credit: AMC.