Shrinkage And More Sandwich Talk
Posted on | April 4, 2008 at 7:58 pm | Comments Off
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “my therapist said i’m very attractive”.
Which reminds me…
N and I have been watching the HBO show In Treatment. Well, the show’s actually over for the season but we DVRed all the episodes and are slowly working our way through them. It was a nine-week, five-days-a-week show. There were 43 episodes (the last week had three episodes instead of the usual five; I’m not sure why yet). We just finished week four, so we’re not quite half done. In Treatment is based on an Israeli TV show and is the story of 50-year old psychological therapist Paul, played by Gabriel Bryne. The Monday thru Thursday episodes of the show have him meeting with five different patients (Mondays: Laura, Tuesdays: Alex, Wednesdays: Sophie, Thursdays: Jake & Amy) and on Friday he sees his own therapist Gina. It’s quite an ambitious thing for HBO to do, but I’ll reserve final judgment on it until the end.
The show does have an overall story arc, so it doesn’t feel too isolated and episodic. The arc deals with Paul himself and what’s he going through in his personal life, and how’s he relating to this set of patients, especially one patient in particular. A lot of this umbrella arc comes through in those Friday sessions with his therapist. So there’s some direction and enough of a hook to keep us slogging through it to see what happens.
But the limitation of this kind of format is formidable. There’s not much action and no real location shooting, just mostly people sitting around and talking. It’s like a really long play. We’ve found it’s easily digestible in single episode half hour increments, but when we try to watch two or more in a row, fatigue sets in and we both start to nod off. Most of the talking is pretty subdued. However, it can get pretty dramatic at times, which reminds me not at all of my own therapy sessions. I just can’t imagine yelling at my therapist, for example. It just doesn’t seem polite. And I certainly wouldn’t (spoiler alert!) go into her bathroom and try to commit suicide with sleeping pills. And the way Paul treats his own therapist Gina is really bizarre. He keeps berating her and ends almost every one of those episodes walking out in a huff. She’s just his punching bag, I guess. Or maybe that’s the way therapists treat each other? It was kind of like that on The Sopranos too, I guess. There’s some backstory there about their relationship that’s slowing coming out.
Anyway, we should get through the whole thing in another couple of weeks and I’ll report back then with a final opinion. We’re already thinking that if there’s a second season, we probably won’t watch it. It’s just too much to deal with.
Aside to Miles: Monday patient Laura is played by one of your favorite actresses, Melissa George, in full-out all-sexy mode.
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: I stopped off at my local Subway to pick up a sandwich for dinner tonight, and even though it’s been months since I last patronized it, it was still slow as all get-out. That’s 20 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. I just can’t understand why they never have more than two people behind the counter, and why I always get stuck behind the customers with the huge lists who are buying sandwiches for everyone they know. This is especially galling because I can’t help comparing it to the Subway near work, where I go for lunch occasionally. That one, even though it’s smaller, is a marvel of efficiency. They don’t tolerate dawdling. During lunch, they’ll usually have like 5 or 6 workers there behind the counter, crammed into a tiny space. A couple three people making sandwiches, one at the cash register (not pulling double sandwich duty like at the other one), and also usually someone replenishing supplies and overseeing the operation. It’s really something to watch. You better know exactly what you want on your sandwich and be able to articulate it quickly, or you get nasty looks. Yeah, I know my local Subway is in a much less busy area, but still they always seem to get a lot of customers. I guess the employee turnover is pretty high. I keep looking at the workers and thinking “How long have you been doing this? My six-year old niece could make a sandwich faster than that”.
Fiber-related Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “do bagels have fiber in them”.