TVSquad

(S01E01) You might think that you're watching a variation on Law & Order when the first few minutes of The Good Wife commences. It's not just that Chris Noth is in the scene, looking every bit like Mike Logan. It's more that the scene is ripped from the headlines. Disgraced politician -- Elliot Spitzer, David Vitter, Jim McGreevey -- caught in a sex scandal. His innocent, good wife, standing beside him.

As Alicia Florrick, the wife of a Chicago prosecutor who was caught sucking the toes of prostitutes and forced to resign, Julianna Margulies masters the shell-shocked, distant gaze. Her eyes, in fact, fixate on a stray thread on his suit. But the fog lifts quickly and away from the podium, reality comes in the form of a smack in the face. She delivers the smack, and from that moment, you're on her side. Maybe it was a cheap trick, but it worked.

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.

(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.