‘In Treatment’ Makes Pandemic Era Return

HBO therapy drama “In Treatment” returned for a fourth season Sunday at 9pm, but the premiere probably looked a bit different to longtime fans of the series. The last season finished airing in 2010 and a new doctor is in.

Uzo Aduba (“Orange is the New Black”) embodies the role of Dr Brooke Taylor in the reboot, which is set in present-day Los Angeles and tackles everything from the pandemic to cultural and social issues. Taylor is a little different from the therapist from the show’s first run, and Aduba said during a TCA Winter Tour panel that her style during the sessions is often to incorporate her own experiences to make her clients feel more comfortable.

“Even in this pandemic, as you hear her say in the show, she shows up for her patients,” she said. “I think that also extends as far as her opening them up to her own experiences to help invite them to come closer to the things that they’re looking to confront.”

There are some elements that were preserved to honor the original run that longtime fans can look for in Taylor’s home. “We wanted to preserve the connective tissue between the first three seasons that everybody watched and loved… that’s why it felt right to call it Season 4, because shows reinvent themselves, especially when they take a decade off,” executive producer Josh Allen said.

When asked about the decision to have a person of color occupy the therapist’s chair this time around, Allen said it was a conscious decision, just as it was to have the patients come from a variety of backgrounds and ethnic groups.

“There’s such a stigma attached to it, especially in communities of color, so it felt important to me, personally, to put that on television to show that we all need this,” Allen said. “I wanted to, in reimagining the show, make sure that we were expanding the idea of who gets access to therapy and under what circumstances to destigmatize it.”