In Treatment

• American Idol winner Kris Allen has officially signed a record deal with Jive. — Billboard
• Masi Oka conceived of the idea for and will executive produce the adventure film The Defenders for Dreamworks. — ComingSoon
• In Treatment might be too expensive for HBO to bring it back for a third season. — Broadcasting and Cable
• Neil Patrick Harris will join Vanessa Hudgens and Mary-Kate Olsen in Beastly, the reimagining of Beauty and the Beast. — The Hollywood Reporter
• The CW show Blonde Charity Mafia is apparently too good for Summer; it will now premiere next TV season instead. — Washington Post
• The IMAX cut of the Transformers sequel will apparently be slightly longer than the non-IMAX one. — ComingSoon
• The BBC is making documentaries about The Office and Extras, which will include new footage. — The Sun

Photo courtesy of Fox

If you have HBO or Showtime, tonight's your lucky night — even moreso if you have both! One of Showtime's new signature series wraps up its first season tonight, while new seasons of acclaimed dramas begin on both Showtime and HBO.

First, the finale: United States of Tara's first season ends tonight, with Tara preparing to face head-on the man she believes to be the cause of her dissociative identity disorder. This show has really grown on me since its premiere, almost more for the supporting characters (especially Tara's kids, Kate and Marshall) than for Tara or her alters. It's already been renewed for a second season, so I'm curious to see what tonight's episode wraps up and what it leaves up in the air for the next batch of episodes.

Meanwhile, The Tudors returns for its third season on Showtime, and In Treatment starts its second on HBO. In Treatment is operating on a different schedule this year, with the five therapy sessions airing over two nights (Sundays and Mondays) instead of five, which I hope makes it easier to keep up with the show. The Tudors comes back with some new wives entering the life of Henry VIII, and of them, I'm most curious to see Joss Stone's acting debut as Anne of Cleves.

So: What are you watching tonight? To watch previews for In Treatment and The Tudors and the awesome opening credits for United States of Tara, just read more

I'm still catching up on the first season of In Treatment on DVD, but that doesn't make me any less excited for this first glimpse of season two, which will start April 5 on HBO.

This season's schedule for the show, which stars Gabriel Byrne as a therapist, is a little more forgiving. Instead of airing five nights a week, two of the half-hour episodes will play on Sundays with three more — including Paul's session with his own therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest) — on Mondays. It's also only seven weeks instead of nine. HBO says people tended to watch the show in chunks anyway, so hopefully this will make it all easier to digest.

As for the stories this season, Paul will still be dealing with some of the fallout from season one plus taking on a new roster of patients, played by Hope Davis (a single attorney), John Mahoney (a CEO), Allison Pill (an architecture student), and Aaron Shaw (an 11-year-old, whose parents will also appear). If you're caught up on the show, you might enjoy reading through this lengthy look at some of the developments for the upcoming season. In the meantime, to check out a promo for the new episodes, just read more

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to my selections below, you can also add Zack Snyder's animated Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter to your queue.

Quantum of Solace
It seems like just yesterday we were puzzling over the title of the newest Bond flick and now here it is, out on DVD. The man with the killer looks and dreamy eyes, Daniel Craig, reprises his role as superspy James Bond, who is still pretty peeved at having been betrayed by Vesper Lynd, the woman he loved in the previous film. He wishes to take revenge on the company that blackmailed Vesper, though, and in his search he and M (Judi Dench) uncover plans of a shady leader of an environmentalist company to take control of Bolivia's water supply.

Bond also meets Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who has her own vengeful plan in mind. There's a lot of international locales included as well as Craig locking and loading guns throughout some intense action sequences — what more do you need?

Special features include the music video for "Another Way to Die," a featurette titled "Bond on Location," and commentary from director Marc Forster.

Two more still to come, so read more

• The Big Bang Theory has been renewed for two seasons and Two and a Half Men for three. — TV.com
• Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke will direct a film adaptation of Gayle Forman's upcoming novel, If I Stay, for Summit Entertainment. — Zap2It
• Elle Macpherson is returning to acting with a recurring role on CW's drama pilot Beautiful Life. — The Hollywood Reporter
• Universal has picked up a romantic-comedy script titled Merman about a merman who comes to land so he can win back his mermaid fiancee, who has left him for a real man. — Variety
• The widower of the late Adrienne Shelly (writer-director of Waitress) will develop and produce The Morgan Story, a screenplay for a family drama that Shelly left behind. — AP
• In Treatment will return to HBO on April 5. — Zap2it
• Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones will join Ben Affleck in the dramatic movie The Company Men. — ComingSoon
• Lily Collins, daughter of Phil, will guest-star on 90210 at the end of the season. — The Hollywood Reporter
• Justin Long will star in the romantic-comedy Going the Distance, which will be directed by American Teen director Nanette Burstein. — ComingSoon
• Mary J. Blige has signed on to star alongside Taraji P. Henson in I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Tyler Perry's upcoming film. — Variety

Photos courtesy of CBS

• Though many people thought The Soloist (and its lead actors, Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.) would be up for Oscars this year, Paramount has pushed the movie's release from Nov. 21, 2008 to March 13, 2009. — Variety
• Hugh Grant is bowing out of the romantic comedy Lost for Words due to differences of opinion on the script. — ComingSoon
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been picked up for a full second season. — Broadcasting and Cable
• Hope Davis and John Mahoney are joining the cast of In Treatment. — Zap2it
• The Grammys nominations announcement will be an hourlong TV special this year, airing Dec. 3 on CBS. — Billboard




• Survivor host Jeff Probst has created a new reality show in which dying people live out their final wishes. — Entertainment Weekly
• Liza Minelli is returning to Broadway for two weeks in December performing a show called Liza’s at the Palace. . ! — Variety
• Luke Grimes has been cast as Ryan on Brothers and Sisters. — E! Online

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Nine weeks of therapy wasn't enough for HBO. The network has decided to renew In Treatment for a second season.

The show, which stars Gabriel Byrne as a therapist, is one of the more unusual programs to appear on HBO in recent years. The half-hour show aired five days a week, Monday through Friday, with each day focusing on a session with a different patient. For the first four days of the week, Byrne's character led the sessions; on Friday, it was his turn on the couch with his own therapist (Dianne Wiest).

The show wasn't highly rated, but HBO has already made a couple of changes for this second season, including bringing in famed playwright and producer Warren Leight to run things and moving the show's production to New York (though the actual therapy practice will keep its setting near Washington, DC). So far, only Byrne and Wiest are on board for the second season, and it's unclear whether any of the patients from the first season will continue on or if it will be a whole new cast.

I thought In Treatment was a great concept, even if I couldn't always keep up with it, and I'll be checking out the season one DVD this Fall to catch up on the things I missed. Season two is scheduled to start production in a few months and make its debut in early 2009. Will you be watching? Or is In Treatment just too big of a commitment?

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HBO's intriguing — but not for the commitment-phobic — nightly series, In Treatment, isn't exactly an overnight sensation. The show's premiere last week got the lowest numbers for an HBO series premiere ever. But maybe it's not quite time to panic yet, considering all the other ways HBO is making In Treatment available to HBO subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

Personally, I've been TiVoing all the episodes and hoping to settle in for a long marathon sometime down the line. But I don't have to do that, at least for the first three weeks: HBO has made the first 15 episodes available as a podcast from the iTunes store. Those same 15 episodes are also streaming online for free. In both of those cases, the full week's worth of episodes becomes available every Monday, so you don't even have to check back several times to get them all.

There are also two-minute recaps of each episode available on the show's main site, and if you have HBO but don't want to tune in each night, they're all also up through HBO On Demand.

Have you been following In Treatment on TV? And do you think you'll try to watch it any of these other ways?

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