HBO Schedules In Treatment

Half-Hour Therapy Drama Starring Gabriel Byrne to Air Monday-Friday for Nine Weeks

By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/31/2007 4:51:00 PM

HBO nailed down the scheduling for therapy drama In Treatment, scheduling original episodes of the half-hour show Mondays-Fridays at 9:30 p.m. for nine weeks beginning Jan. 28.

Each different weekday through Thursday will be regularly devoted to one of four patients in therapy sessions with a shrink played by Gabriel Byrne, with Fridays devoted to his sessions with his own shrink.

Starting in the second week, the previous week's episode will precede the new one at 9 p.m. HBO2 will replay the episodes the same night at 11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. On Sundays, HBO will run previous week's five episodes in a block starting at 6:30 p.m. HBO2 will do the same on Saturdays starting at 10 p.m.

And in a scheduling stunt, digital network HBO Signature will run the episodes in "real-time" -- the days and times when each patient meets the shrink ("Laura," the Monday patient, meets at 9 a.m.; "Alex," Tuesday's patient, meets at 10 a.m., and so forth).

HBO On Demand will carry the entire series, adding each week's episodes on Mondays.

Figuring out how to schedule the series has been tricky for HBO executives, who have been working on it since the network decided to adapt it from a similar Israeli show. Because it runs 43 episodes, with several devoted to each of the patients, HBO couldn't feasibly run just one per week. Also at issue, the network has several other series to schedule around, including The Wire, whichreturns Sunday nights in early January, and John Adams, which premieres Sundays before In Treatment ends its run in March.

While In Treatment has already gotten early buzz from critics and is sure to get more around its premiere -- two weeks after the semiannual Television Critics Association tour in Los Angeles -- scheduled as such, it doesn't premiere new episodes Sundays, where HBO historically puts its big-ticket shows.

Sundays were not ever a big consideration, executive vice president of program planning David Baldwin said, since the show's structure is so clearly not a fit for once-weekly Sunday scheduling.

"It wasn't going to be an HBO signature Sunday series in anyone's mind -- it was going to be something different," Baldwin added. "It's not the Sunday-night size, type, flavor or feel type of show because of its architecture."

Regardless of exploiting its various digital channels and other platforms, the Monday-Friday scheduling of new episodes seemed the most sensible approach to guiding viewers to the series, Baldwin said.

"We finally came back to that old adage of keep it simple," he added. "It seemed as simple and straightforward a way to present it to the public that we could think of."