TVSquad

Last season, Gabriel Byrne, Dianne Wiest and Blair Underwood lead an amazing cast in one of the most daring new projects on television: HBO's In Treatment. For nine weeks, the show aired virtually every night in half-hour installments. Gabriel Byrne was the constant, therapist Paul Weston, and each show featured one of his therapy sessions with a different patient. And with the sessions each happening Monday through Friday on the same day the show aired, the progression of the show felt like real time.

Which is why I don't get HBO's move to jigger with the schedule for the second season of In Treatment, starting this Sunday. Now, instead of getting one session per day throughout the week, we're getting two back-to-back episodes on Sundays starting at 9/8 Central and three consecutive installments on Mondays starting at 9/8 Central. Their reasoning for this change: they found that people tended to watch the show in clumps anyway, so why not air it like that? But honestly, it's so much more intimidating this way. When it's only 30 minutes each night, it doesn't feel like much, but now you're looking at an hour and a half on Mondays!

Blair Underwood is extremely sexy. Admit it: male or female, gay or straight, no matter what your "type" is, there's just something about him.

Playing the mysterious Simon Elder on ABC's Dirty Sexy Money -- not to mention past screen-steamers like Jonathan Rollins on L.A. Law, Miranda's boyfriend Dr. Robert on Sex and the City and New Adventures of Old Christine's hunky teacher Mr. Harris -- it's no wonder Underwood ranks so high on the TV's 50 Hottest TV Hunks -- Ever countdown over at AOL Television.

Underwood dished to us about his love for Donald Trump's reality TV show, his Barack Obama connection and what kind of trouble is coming up on Dirty Sexy Money.

(S02E05) That was more like it! Just as I was about to write off this week's episode as another bland installment of Dirty Sexy Money, down came an embarrassment of primetime soap riches. Letitia's trial was resolved with the kind of speed only possible in TV-land, and we got a cliffhanger and three major shocks to boot! Read on for the details.

(S02E01) The Darlings are back! Despite all the behind-the-scenes personnel and casting changes, Dirty Sexy Money appears to be better than ever. Loyal fans were rewarded with a major development in last season's murder mystery, and the premiere gave new viewers plenty of reasons to come back for more. Season One feels like it ended ages ago, but "The Birthday Present" was the perfect refresher course in the elements of this gorgeous, twisted world.

As the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences tries to whittle the submissions down to actual nominees, it's interesting to take a look at who has made it to the semifinals. It's not a nomination, but it's one step away. Today comes word of the finalists for best comedy actress and best supporting drama actor. There are some surprises.

Chief among those for me is Sarah Silverman. I honestly hadn't even considered her in the running. I'm not much of a fan, but I do like that she is being considered for the simple fact that the base the nominees are drawn from can always use some expansion. And if she is the most surprising inclusion, the most surprising snub just might be Teri Hatcher. Eva Longoria, Marcia Cross, and Felicity Huffman all made the cut, but not Hatcher. Ouch. The rest of the finalists, and the supporting actors from a drama, after the jump.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who assumed the HBO nightly series In Treatment, featuring Gabriel Byrne, Blair Underwood, Josh Charles and Dianne Wiest among others, was pretty much going to be a done in one. I really enjoyed the tension they managed to create with essentially two or three people sitting in a room and talking, and while critical acclaim pretty much affirmed that I am brilliant (like I needed their help), the ratings didn't follow.

While official word on the show's fate still hasn't come, what is trickling around is that HBO is this close to signing Law & Order: Criminal Intent executive producer Warren Leight (see me holding my fingers really close together), with the intention of putting him on In Treatment should it get the pick-up, which ups the odds of said happening tremendously. I can't imagine the show costs a tremendous amount to produce, aside from paying the top-notch actors they brought on board. Aside from Byrne and Wiest, we'd likely be looking at a new cast of patients with all new conflicts.

From March 14th to March 27th, The Paley Center for Media is presenting the twentieth-fifth annual William S. Paley Television Festival. The Paley Center, formerly the Museum of Television and Radio, says that the festival celebrates "television's rich and diverse programming and the creative process behind the medium." This year the festival included Chuck, Friday Night Lights, Pushing Daisies, Gossip Girl, and The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reunion.

Last night, I attended the Dirty Sexy Money panel. For what happened during the panel discussion, read on past the jump...

If you're cool, then you've been following HBO's bold new nightly series In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne, Blair Underwood and Dianne Wiest among others. If you're even cooler than you've been reading our awesome reviews right here at TV Squad. Don't worry, the reviews will continue, only instead of being nightly you'll get a weekly recap.

So far, you've missed eight episodes, but it's still not too late. In an unprecedented move for HBO, they're making the first three weeks (that's fifteen episodes for you mathematically challenged) available for free viewing online. The full series runs 43 episodes, but these 15 will give you plenty of time to give your cable/satellite provider a call and sign up for HBO.

(S01E04) "So was that convincing enough?" Amy, after a long monologue about her 'depression.'

It's like the fourth first episode in a row! It really is amazing how every episode so far has essentially been the first episode of a new series. In fact, when they do the "Next time on..." bit, it's not "Tomorrow on In Treatment." It's "Next Thursday on In Treatment: Jake & Amy. And there has been no real connection between these first few episodes, save the common thread of Paul Weston as therapist. Tomorrow night's episode will show what this series is really going to be about as Paul goes to see his own therapist. In Treatment is one of the most unusual television experiments I've ever seen, but after four episodes I think I'm beginning to really like it.

HBO continues to prepare for a post Sopranos world. There has been a lot of talk about their upcoming shows lately, including adapting George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, David Milch's John From Cincinnati, and the untitled Kanye West project. We can now add two more to that list.

The network has picked up a one-hour comedy from producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (Designing Women) called 12 Miles Of Bad Road. The show will star Lily Tomlin as the matriarch of a rich Texas family. Add in the family real estate business and a collection of relatives and hilarity will ensue, hopefully. The idea almost sounds like a Dallas spoof. With Tomlin on board, it will certainly be worth a look. Look for Gary Cole, Mary Kay Place, and Leslie Jordan to also appear.

Eriq LaSalle, who played Doctor Peter Benton on ER from 1994 to 2001, returns to NBC's prime-time schedule in January. This time, though, he won't be acting. Rather, he will be behind the cameras as he directs an episode of Law & Order: SVU.

LaSalle will be reunited with SVU cast member Mariska Hargitay, who portrayed Cynthia Hooper during the fourth season of ER, and Michael Michele, who played Doctor Cleo Finch (and Benton's girlfriend) for two seasons on the medical drama. In the episode itself, which will air January 9th, a messy marital estrangement and subsequent custody battle (are there any others on SVU) will pit Valerie Sennet (Michele) against her estranged husband Miles Sennett (Blair Underwood) and result in some secrets being discovered by detectives Benson (Hargitay) and Stabler.

The hunky Blair Underwood has signed on to play a recurring role as a "hunky new teacher" at Richie's school, on The New Adventures of Old Christine. Underwood joined the cast after a pilot he was in, called Company Town, didn't get picked up by the networks. Most recently, Underwood co-starred in NBC's failed LAX with Heather Locklear. I swear, he doesn't look like he's aged a single day since he was on LA Law.

In other casting news, that really hot Brazilian actor from Love Actually is joining the cast of Lost. His name is Rodrigo Santoro and, in case the name and the reference don't ring any bells, he played the co-worker who had the hots for Laura Linney in the movie. Not sure what role he's playing on Lost, but then again I don't really want to know in case it ruins something.