but the scenes sound shallow and dumb

she wasn't bad looking

you may hold some distorted beliefs about what therapy should and can be. If your actual experiences align with what you have written here, don’t go back. Try someone else.

The fact is, most of the time psychiatry doesn't work. Getting a therepist who's competent to help you with your problems is a crapshoot. (I didn't just say most shrinks are frauds, did I? Freudian slip?)

Also, I might say that attempting to do comedies and dramas involving psychiatry is pretty much impossible. By its nature, exploration of one's problems is navel-gazing. It doesn't involve another person. (A genuine, trained psychiatrist or counselor can't be involved with a patient, except in Columbo-style murder mysteries.) You're listening to someone talking about his problems to a wall, and that's pretty boring.

The only time it ever worked was with The Bob Newhart Show, where it was obvious that his psychiatrist character was an incompetent hack. His patients were never cured, giving him a ready cast of wacky supporting characters, and he didn't cope well with life either. If it were an honest show he would have had five or six of his patients suicide each season, which he would shrug off. Hell, in one episode he should have come out of his office spattered with his failed patient's blood and brains, and have his receptionist utter a witty quip about how the dry cleaners were all closed.

Dear Salon,

Thanks for selling out. Saw it on Open Salon today too.

I'm a conservative Christian who reads the site 'cause I love it.

Not anymore.

Years ago, I benefited from therapy. I became a different person much for the better, for myself, my family, and others around me.

I watched the first season of "In Treatment" and for me, it was the best TV show I have ever watched and I watch several excellent programs. Looking forward to the new season!!

In Treatment's first season was a gem -- up there in quality and ambition with HBO's best. I'm sorry they're abandoning the Mon-Fri. format of showing it, as that really captured the daily grind aspect of being a therapist. Probably captured the daily grind a little too well for the ratings; shouldn't HBO just throw the ratings information out the window when it stumbles on art?

I've watched a couple of episodes of Party Down (new comedy on Starz) on Netflix -- it's a funny show as well; worth a look. One of the dudes from Tell Me You Love Me plays a very similar character in a similar way, only now he's the deadpan center of an absurdist comedy! One of the surreal joys of being a TV-watcher is seeing actors recycled in jarring contrast to how you know them; it's especially weird seeing the Wire cast popping up all over recently in shows that are considerably less grounded in reality.

Can't hang with him. I have tried to watch this show but Mr. Byrne just bumps me out of the scene time and again. I find him wooden, dull and lifeless--not the still waters they are going for.

"could make the Marlboro Man sprout breasts and run off to an artists' colony in Santa Fe." I suppose that is a reason enough to watch, but you have no idea, there are stranger things in Fanta Se.

you said: I find him wooden, dull and lifeless--not the still waters they are going for.

This may be because you've never met anyone with a similar speech cadence - mannerisms. When I watch this show, G. Byrne reminds me so much of my father and other men I grew up around living on an island in the cold North Atlantic. I find his character so real as to be, literally uncomfortable for me to watch. The harried, irritable side just barely damped down under what used to be genuine concern but is turning to resignation, or exhausted frustration. Anyone who's worked in counselling, law, or teaching, knows the feeling. Byrne is simply stunning in the authenticity of his acting. I find it, not wooden, but definitely muted. Which accords perfectly with my experience of burnt out professionals. The show is almost too personal to watch at times.

Good article. Propriety is one of the major themes of the show. And must be an occupational hazzard. Remaining objective is not always realistic or even ideal for a doctor. Yes Paul gets involved in his patients, too much when it came to his stalker, Laura, but shouldn't he be involved when a teenager is suicidal, or another refusing cancer treatment?

I love Gabriel Byrne, but this sort of thing just exhausts me, and I refuse to get invested in it. I did enjoy the review, but I cant imagine this is instructive. It just seems like wallowing in so much misery.

The Box. We watch it to inject a life we do not share into our otherwise empty selves. But is this all bad?

It is a time and space of creative involvement, a meditation of sort, that delves deeper into hopes, fears, dreams, wishes and desire itself.

So when "therapy" arises upon the spirit-giving, timeless Box, we are even more thrust into by the intimacy of other lives, different living. It is no wonder that adults are mesmerized by drama that mimics intrapsychic, cultural trapeze while kids remain affixed to wiley images and silly, plot-driven caricatures that suffice as real humans. Their lack of human development is staged in simple actions and embarrassing situations of dread or nonconformity.

But the grownups must pay attention to the parts that are missing inside - or in their relationship - and outside in the society of "Survivor" that casts us off the island, and re-casts ourselves into differing situations, much as actors are thrust into new roles outside their sphere of familiarity to the unwitful audience.

Chumps are Us for believing issues can be resolved on The Box.

But the psychological distance thus manufactured insulates us from the pain of fame, responsibility, intelligent acts and really doing anything at all to change our morbid little lives.

Don't you just love it??!!