intreatment

I'm crazy for HBO, and one of the shows I'm really looking forward to is Boardwalk Empire, a pilot executive produced by Martin Scorsese (who's also directing), Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, and Terence Winter (who's also penning the pilot).

Based on the Nelson Johnson book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, the project chronicles the 1920s origins of Atlantic City, New Jersey. From what I've read, it sounds like a mix of The Departed, The Sopranos and Goodfellas -- all favorites of mine. And the cast they've got lined up couldn't be better.

Steve Buscemi plays Nucky Johnson, a businessman who runs a liquor distribution ring at the beginning of Prohibition. Michael Pitt (pictured) is in negotiations to play Jimmy Darmody, a bright, young, ruthless WWI veteran who serves as a flunky for Nucky, but yearns for more power.

Let's just forget that drab fall TV season ever happened and prepare for the stellar lineup ahead.

Follow our midseason guide to find out what happened -- and what's going to happen -- on '24,' 'Battlestar,' 'Scrubs' and all your returning favorites.

One of the biggest victims in last year's Writers Guild strike was the Golden Globe awards. Fortunately, the SAG threats of a strike remain just that -- threats -- so the Globes are on and the nominations were announced this morning.

Unfortunately, there were few surprises among the TV noms. In fact, it's kind of worrisome that these nominations are way too similar to the Emmy nominations. Among the new network shows from this season, and last, very little.

NBC will broadcast the Golden Globes on January 11. For the complete list of the Globe noms, click here, and for some instant impressions on said noms, read on after the jump:

I watched Tell Me You Love Me a few times, but it never had enough oomph to bring me back every week. I guess a lot of viewers felt that way, because HBO decided not to renew it for a second season.

The sex-drenched show followed the lives of couples in therapy and was probably one of the most sexually explicit shows on TV. I have friends who watched it religiously, and some say they felt uncomfortable not so much with the sex, but because it felt like they were eavesdropping on peoples' darkest secrets.

I squealed with delight upon learning that I'll have the pleasure of more therapy sessions with Dr. Paul Weston. In other words, HBO has renewed the half-hour drama In Treatment for a second season.

Is it bad that I'm overly excited by this news? Clearly, I need to get out more. But the soulful doctor, played by the even-more-soulful Gabriel Byrne, has got the art of listening down to a science. He can be my therapist any day.

Based on the Israeli series Betipul, the show follows the psychoanalyst through his week in a real-time scenario. From Monday through Thursday, we get to eavesdrop on sessions with each of his patients. On Friday, Paul meets with his own therapist, Dr. Gina Toll, played by the always wonderful Dianne Wiest. It's a fascinating look into the minds of both patients and therapists.

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.

Last week's episode of The Office now ranks high on my list of Awkward TV Moments. It got me thinking about other all-time great awkward TV moments. Sure, we've all seen the episode where a disheveled Mary Richards shows up at the awards banquet wearing one fuzzy pink slipper. And the one where Frasier and Roz nearly do it on a cruise ship. But let's take a look at a few recent awkward TV moments.

1. Jan heaves a Dundee at Michael's flat-screen TV. Okay, we'll start with last week's episode of The Office, in which Michael coerces Jim and Pam into attending a couples-only dinner party at his and Jan's condo. The entire episode is one long awkward moment, from Dwight showing up with his former babysitter as his date to Pam realizing she'll be held hostage for three hours, thanks to Jan's poor culinary planning. But the topper is when Michael and Jan's love spat escalates into a huge fight, ending with her heaving one of his treasured Dundee awards at his new (and tiny) flat-screen TV. The cops show up after the neighbors report a disturbance, and Michael ends up going home with Dwight.

Mysterious. Mesmerizing. Interesting. Dynamic. Compelling. Any and all of these words accurately describe actress Michelle Forbes. She is one of the finest actresses in television, and yet she has maintained a distinct quality that makes her as elusive a performer to come around since Garbo! Intensely private, there's not much known about the Austin, Texas native. (However, I can tell you that she collects clocks -- broken clocks. As she told me, quoting the movie Withnail and I, "Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.")

She's currently making HBO's new drama In Treatment appointment TV, drawing her loyal following to find her latest work as she did in 24, Prison Break, Homicide and Battlestar Galactica. And that doesn't even take into account the millions who first discovered this chameleon when she first burst onto the scene in Guiding Light, and then Star Trek: The Next Generation.

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In recent weeks, TV Squad has reported that HBO has made episodes of their new drama series In Treatment available for free viewing online. Now, HBO has taken another step in expanding its brand and making some of their top shows available on the web. The cable channel has just inked a deal with YouTube to create an HBO channel online. The HBO/YouTube site is up and running -- you can click over there today and start catching up on HBO series.

The initial line up is impressive, starting with the Gabriel Byrne drama In Treatment. You can also catch up with Entourage episodes, which are always fun. There are more laughs with Flight of the Conchords, Extras, Stand Up Comedy, Def Comedy Jam, and Real Time With Bill Maher. On the dramatic front, there's The Wire. In addition, you can watch episodes of the award-winning magazine show Real Sports, as well as the Latino documentary series Habla y Habla.

(S01E16-20) "Fuck all of you and the fish you swam in on." - Sophie

Laura
So it seems pretty obvious that Paul is jealous. What's worse is that Laura is so painfully aware of Paul's jealousy. The power has so clearly shifted in their relationship that it seems to be verging on malpractice.

You gotta love how Paul can be so detached when Laura is in tears begging him to have sex with her but when she is describing her sexual encounter with another man, the scowl on his face is severe enough to cut glass. He clearly needs a vacation.

(S01E11-15) "Are you making fun of me." - Alex

Laura:
So Paul is now sleeping in his office. It kind of gives you the impression that his profession is interfering in his personal life doesn't it? This show is about as subtle as John Turturro in Miller's Crossing.

The more I watch this show, the more I'm convinced that Paul is the worst therapist ever. Not only is he still seeing Laura after she's made it clear that she's obsessed with him, now he's begun talking to her like some passive-aggressive Svengali. What the fuck the does he care if she's late. Is he her shrink or her father? Freud much?

(S01E6-10) "She's a total tool...and a retard" - Sophie

We've decided to cover the entire week's offering in one review.

Laura:
So we finally get to see the gorgeous Michelle Forbes, too bad it was so brief.

I suppose it's no accident that last week when Laura was in turmoil, she was dressed in black and now, that she's decided to get married she's dressed in white. What I can't decide is if the weak attempt at symbolism was Laura's idea or the writer's. I almost lost consciousness due to being smothered by the Freudian imagery in this episode. Breast feeding, diving, upholstery, it all seemed a little labored to me, although, sometimes a plunger is just a plunger.

As much as I enjoy sexual tension, I really have very little interest in the relationship between Laura and Paul other than trying to figure out why he would continue to be her therapist when it's clear that she needs to get over him if before she can get over anything else.

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.

(S01E05) "I think this was a mistake coming here today." - Paul Weston

Now this is what I was waiting for. Sure, it was still essentially a single therapy session in real time for thirty minutes, but it was Gabriel Byrne on the patient side and the always brilliant Dianne Wiest as his therapist Gina. Only it's been nearly ten years since he's seen her due to some kind of bad history, and their professional relationship was more complicated than simply patient/therapist. So out of the blue he called her and she agreed to see him, but was he wanting to see her as a friend, a colleague, a therapist? Gina had no idea what Paul wanted, and I don't think Paul did either.

As I expected, the Friday episodes will be the fulcrum on which the entire series balances, and if this episode is any indication, I officially think the series is going to be amazing. So much of the history of these two characters and the bad blood was hinted at, but thank god we weren't spoon fed information through awkward dialogue, and the acting on both sides to capture all those buried feelings bubbling near the surface was stellar.

(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.