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.
