In Treatment Season 2   Starring: Gabriel Byrne HBO Home Entertainment RRP: £45.95 1000171883 Certificate: 15 Available 10 October 2011

Having recently divorced, Dr Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) has moved to Brooklyn, away from his ex-wife and children. Setting himself back up in practice Weston takes on a further four patients. Mia (Hope Davies) is an ex client who continues to harbour a grudge against him, feeling that he had abandoned her when he was her therapist twenty years ago. April (Alison Pill) is a young woman recent diagnosed with cancer who cannot open up to anyone else. Oliver (Aaron Shaw) is the child of a recently separated couple, whose own lack of communication is having an impact on their son. Lastly, Walter (John Mahoney) is a powerful CEO who cannot sleep and is having panic attacks...

In Treatment Season Two is a drama from HBO, the show is an adaptation of a Hagai Levi’s Israeli series Be Tipul. The show gained both critical approval as well as winning seven Emmy’s, five Golden Globes, three Satellite awards as well as four other including the prestigious Peabody Award in 2009.

The seven DVD set, totalling thirty-five episodes, splits the week into individual discs, allowing you to dip in and out of the twenty-five minute programmes. The original transmission would have required an enormous commitment from its audience having to watch a single episode, a night, over seven weeks, presented as a DVD it’s both a more relaxed and intense experience, allowing the watcher to follow single storylines.

The show has a unique structure. Each week is broken down to its week days with Monday to Thursday concentrating on one of the individual clients and the Friday show moving the focus on Weston himself. This allows the audience to follow either all the client of a single client at a time.

Being based on therapy, the show is mainly a static piece, with Weston spending the whole of the episodes time talking with his client. This could have been slow and boring, but the stories that are being told and the caliber of the actors makes this a riveting experience; though I will admit it will not be to everybody’s taste. If you found Tony Soprano’s sessions good television then this is likely to appeal.

The down beat and naturalistic setting and acting does make you feel like a voyeur in someone’s real therapy and let’s face it there is nothing more fascinating than other people and how they tick. There is a guilty pleasure to being a fly on the wall of Weston’s office, even if at times the intrusion feels a little uncomfortable.

The show has other aspects which makes it a fine drama. Like real therapy, some of the stories do not have conventional conclusions; with some having no conclusion at all. Weston is also, no Frasier Crane, with the therapist being as equally neurotic as some of his clients.

All in all, the show is another gem in HBO’s crown, another well written drama for adults which refuses to talk down to its audience.

The set has no extras, which is a bit of a shame, but the picture is clear and the DD 5.1 audio track does a good job, though, given the type of programme it’s not going to stretch you speakers.

8

Charles Packer