In Treatment.

I don't often think about television as being innovative. But its hard not to see "In Treatment" as a compelling example of how HBO has challenged the category conventions of television drama:

1. Storyline Development: The 30 minute show airs every night Monday through Friday for nine weeks. Each episode Monday through Thursday follows a single patient's therapy and Friday's episode focuses on the therapist session with his own psychologist. Instead of trying to weave all the storylines together, its almost like five vaguely connected threads of storytelling.

2. Dramatic Development: All the drama of the show happens via dialogue and it takes place almost entirely on a one-room set. The characters' lives are brought to life via their own telling, not by actually observing those lives. So, there's a fair amount of imagination needed by the viewer. And it's fascinating to see how Gabriel Byrne dramatizes the act of listening.

3. Content Management: On Demand posts the entire week of content on Mondays, rather than wait until it has aired on HBO and then post it for demand viewing. The upside is that you can watch all of the content at once, if that's your thing. As far as I can tell, that's the first time HBO has given On Demand the ability to post copy in advance of its initial airing.

4. Raw Drama: There's something vaguely connected between "In Treatment" and HBO's 2007 program "Tell Me You Love Me". Sure, both programs are centered on the role and structure of therapy in character's lives. But perhaps there is more than that. Whereas other programs offer the viewer an escape into perfectly art-directed worlds with easily summated storylines that are generally resolved in the span of 58 minutes (e.g. Grey's Anatomy), these two programs offer a different kind of destination. The rawness & grittyness gives the viewer an escape by becoming a voyeur into other people's messy, unresolved lives. It makes me wonder: how does that create a different viewing experience for folks? How does it use different tension and benefits to draw in a viewer?

Maybe it ultimately doesn't create a different viewing experience after all. But either way, its hard not to give kudos to HBO for breaking the conventions of television programming and showing us that it can be done differently, yet again.