The New York Times-20080128-Four Days- a Therapist- Fifth Day- a Patient- -Review-

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Four Days, a Therapist; Fifth Day, a Patient; [Review]

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Some things sound simply awful: a family reunion holiday cruise, an all-you-can-eat haggis buffet, a television series set entirely in a psychotherapist's office.

And that is the premise of In Treatment, a series that begins Monday on HBO. For nine weeks, five nights a week, viewers are invited to sit in on the therapy sessions of Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne). He treats four patients (five, actually, since one session is with a married couple), and then on the fifth day he discusses his demons with his own therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest).

Electroshock therapy might seem more welcome.

In Treatment, however, is hypnotic, mostly because it withholds information as intelligently as it reveals it. Each night a new half-hour episode follows a different patient's session. In every session the patients' words are veined with allusions and elusions, clues to problems or patterns that are invisible to them but absorbing for the viewer.

Freud famously described psychoanalysis as archaeology, the unearthing of meaning layered deep beneath an expanse of ruins. In television and movies it's closer to a detective story.

Suspicion shifts from suspect to suspect in a police procedural; on shrink shows there is one suspect, and suspicion shifts from symptom to symptom -- Law & Disorder. These investigators could use some analysis of their own. Paul, the craggy, caring healer, has serious family problems, while his mentor, Gina, wise and warm as cocoa and cinnamon toast, is not as benevolent as she seems.

This is not HBO's first attempt to explore psychotherapy of course. The founding principle -- and opening joke -- of The Sopranos involved a mobster who consults a therapist. Lately, however, HBO seems to have developed something of a compulsion.

In September it offered Tell Me You Love Me, about a sex therapist and three couples in her care. The series blended graphic sex scenes with a plodding, sorrowful look at marriage and its discontents. But there was never much doubt about the underlying cause of all that marital tension: marriage.

Showtime has left deep tracks on the psychic landscape with its series Huff, which ran from 2004 to 2006 and starred Hank Azaria as a successful therapist who starts to fall apart after a patient's suicide. (The therapist with an issue has become almost a television cliche, a white-coat version of the whore with the heart of gold. In 2006 ABC tried out Help Me Help You, a short-lived sitcom that starred Ted Danson as a therapist who, on his own time, is on the brink of a crackup.)

Sometimes, however, a series is just a series. In Treatment is not a sign of network post-traumatic stress disorder but of HBO's inner resilience. This show is smart and rigorous, with a concentration that bores deep without growing dull. Particularly after the lackluster performance of Tell Me You Love Me, it is commendable that HBO chose a show that is entirely wrapped around the practice of psychotherapy; the camera rarely leaves Paul's office, and when it does, it is to record his sessions in Gina's office.

In Treatment is not entirely a plunge into the unknown, however. The show is HBO's version of Be' Tipul, one of Israel's most successful and most talked about dramas ever. The American adaptation hews close to the original, with minor adjustments: a patient is a combat veteran of the Iraq war, not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It also helps that Paul's patients have an interesting patchwork of neuroses. Laura (Melissa George) is a young, very pretty hospital worker with a fierce erotic attachment to her therapist. Alex (Blair Underwood) is an ace Navy pilot who had a heart attack after a disastrous bombing mission in Iraq. Sophie (Mia Wasikowska) is a 16-year-old schoolgirl and a gifted gymnast who may have suicidal impulses as well as an unhealthy relationship with her coach. Jake and Amy (Josh Charles and Embeth Davidtz) are a couple straining over whether to have a second child.

All of them are intelligent, cagey and hard to classify, let alone treat. And as the problems pile up, Paul's confidence begins to sag.

The half-hour episodes are addictive, and few viewers are likely to be satisfied with just one session at a time. Bending to the age of the Internet, DVR and DVD, HBO is making it easy for viewers to indulge. All the previous episodes about a given character will be shown again on that character's night, and Sundays will have marathons of the previous week's episodes.

Therapy five days a week may seem like more than even the most exacting psychoanalyst could expect, yet it's still not enough. In Treatment provides an irresistible peek at the psychopathology of everyday life -- on someone else's tab.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Gabriel Byrne and Melissa George as therapist and patient in In Treatment, a half-hour series starting Monday on HBO. (PHOTOGRAPH BY CLAUDETTE BARIUS/HBO) (pg. E6)