TVSquad

It looks like HBO is so in love with Gabriel Byrne's turn as Dr. Paul Weston that they're willing to go into uncharted territory with him. While the Isreali series BeTipul, on which it was based, only went two seasons, HBO has ordered a third round of In Treatment.

This is significant because the series remained incredibly faithful to the original series through both of its first two seasons. For this new third season, the writers will have to create all new patients, stories and drama for our beleaguered psychotherapist. Gabriel Byrne is already attached to continue his role, of course. It wouldn't be a show without him. I hope they can secure Dianne Wiest again as Paul's mentor and therapist, Gina.

Yesterday was a sad day for many TV fans. Guiding Light was cancelled after 72 years of continuous broadcasting (radio and TV). Even people I know who don't watch soaps, were upset by the end of this program.

That said, it's with some real glee that I tell you that AMC has picked up Breaking Bad for a third season. It's not just that the Vince Gilligan's show is one of the best dramas on television – it might be the best! – it's the fact that renewing the program for year number three restores my faith that idiosyncratic, unusual stories like Breaking Bad can find a place to thrive and survive on the tube.

The success of Army Wives has been huge for Lifetime. Currently, the second season is doing gangbuster ratings so it's no surprise the CEO Andrea Wong announced yesterday that Army Wives has been renewed for season number three.

Commencing in early 2009, there will be 18 new episodes of the military-oriented, drama set in Fort Marshall around the lives of the families of Army personnel. Currently, the tale of the "tribe" has been a grand slam, Sunday night success for the cable net, the number one cable show among women 25-54 and women 18-49, Lifetime's key demographics.

(S03E08) A friend and I were talking about a third woman, one who's involved with a volunteer organization. "I want my donation to be therapy for her!" said the friend. This week's episode of The 4400 opens that delicious possibility: the ability to force therapy onto someone. Oh, were it only true! I totally would have stolen that lady's herbs, too.

As it turns out, the therapy isn't always beneficent. Three people commit suicide at the opening of the show, haunted too cruelly by figures from their past. This sends Tom and Diana into a quest to find the source of the hallucinations -- a brand-new street drug called "Blink" -- and quash their own demons, personified by Tom's dead father and Diana's old fiancé.

Speaking of fiancés. The plot took its most delicious turn yet.

(S03E07) After Dennis Ryland's several near-death experiences in the third season premiere, and the peaks we see into Isabelle's cooperation with him in this episode, I'll admit I was beginning to feel hopeless. Ryland seemed all-powerful, able to fend off any manner of 4400 attacks and unstoppably diabolical. The perfect enemy and doppelganger archfiend for Tom.

That feeling kept cropping up throughout the episode, sometimes dully thudding as an undercurrent, sometimes spiking into a painful crescendo. Tom and Alanna were spinning out of control. First she was accused of being a Nova Group member, then we learned she had betrayed Tom's trust (but we all knew she was doing good the whole time, right?). Then it seemed she was headed for several years behind bars ... and Tom and Diana, how would they live with themselves if they gave up Gary Navarro to Mr. Perfect Evil himself?

(S03E01/S03E02) I had so many questions in the weeks leading up to last night's third season premiere of The 4400. Two, however, were keenest: Jordan Collier is alive!?! And, Isabelle went from baby to young woman in the space of a minute? (and, did she do it on purpose? and, is she really evil?)

Surprisingly, we saw absolutely nothing of Jordan Collier (not even a hint, really). Instead, the episode was largely centered on Isabelle's instant aging which was, literally, sapping the lifeblood of her mother, and on the rise of a dark subset of the 4400 who were using their powers for a bloody fight against evil: evil, that is, as personified by the NTAC elite whose fear of those very powers led to so much illness and death at the end of season two.

Chief among their targets is E-vil himself, Dennis Ryland. When he proves to be indestructible (just how many times can one man escape death, anyway? Does he have special powers we don't know about yet?), the Nova Group announces their plans to show the world their true power, on October 19.