The premise of HBO's In Treatment, based on a popular Israeli series, sounds like an appealing one: A nightly show in which a therapist (Gabriel Byrne) visits with a different patient each day of the week before heading in to sit with his own shrink on Friday. The patient-therapist-therapist triangle worked well enough on The Sopranos—with Tony, Dr. Melfi, and Dr. Elliot always making for an entertaining ménage à trois. Here, minus the mafia stuff and rich character history, it's less amusing.

From the opening title sequence, the show strikes a single, grating tone: serious, very serious. All of Paul's patients have problems of equally annoying intensity, and it doesn't help matters that they all border on cliché: the slutty, almost-30 chick, the troubled soldier just back from Iraq, the Olympic hopeful with issues, the couple that can't stop fighting even though they love each other. With all their substantive problems, viewers may find themselves hungering for one patient who doesn't have so much to worry about, someone who isn't trying to get over PTSD or sexual abuse, someone who seems depressed just because. Surely the good doctor must have some infuriating patient of that ilk. And, interestingly enough, with all their big problems, none of Dr. Paul's patients seem to be on meds. In the show's huge attempt to feel authentic, it comes off as wholly unreal.

Part of what made Tony Soprano's therapy sessions feel so genuine were their fluctuations, those awkward pauses on certain days when Tony just wasn't sure what to gab about. Here, there are no such pauses. The whole mental health profession seems a constantly flowing fountain of confession.

As the weeks progress, though, the intrigue mounts, and we slowly come to realize that maybe we've been manipulated: Perhaps the good doctor isn't so good? Over time, it becomes clearer that he's projecting his own issues on to his unsuspecting patients, and destroying their psyches in the process. It makes for the occasional decent bit of dramatic irony.

Given that the show comes packaged in smart, daily, 30-minute sessions, it makes for a pleasant enough escape, especially considering that the scrumptious Blair Underwood plays the studly troubled soldier. Worth dropping in on occasion, but no need to schedule regular sessions.