In Treatment

In the drama ‘In Treatment,’ Dr. Paul Weston seems to have a problem with boundaries

I talked about how much less music In Treatment has than its parent Israeli series, but while that’s still true, other episodes this season will have a little more background music than the premiere episode, and more music than is usual for an HBO series. In an interview with Alan Sepinwall, director Paris Barclay explains that the show has started to embrace the idea of using mood music under dialogue, something that doesn’t usually happen on HBO:

I just watched the season premiere of In Treatment (based, like the previous season’s episodes, on an episode of the Israeli show it’s based on); the session takes place in a law office, where Paul finds that a former patient will be representing him in a malpractice case. The show still is what it was last year: compelling and claustrophobic. In a way, despite the soap opera format, In Treatment is weirdly reminiscent of a certain type of half-hour sitcom, the Norman Lear type of show that has few characters and few sets, and does many episodes in something resembling real time. Most sitcoms today, even the multi-camera ones, have multiple scenes and sets in every episode, so it takes In Treatment to remind us of the virtues of doing an episode that’s literally like a one-act stage play. Also, the format of the season premiere reminded me a little of some episodes of Frasier in the way Paul uses his therapy skills no matter where he is, and winds up helping people who are supposed to help him. I’m not saying In Treatment is a sitcom, just that it has some of the qualities we used to associate with such things.