COUPLES THERAPY AUSTRALIA
(Paramount+)
This opens with: “The following program contains domestic and relationship issues that some people may find confronting, viewer discretion advised.”
In fact, it’s anything but confronting, but it’s awesome that, in this new world, same-sex relationships are so normal.
This Australian version of an international franchise, is very much like Gabriel Byrne’s excellent In Treatment, itself a remake of an Egyptian show and produced by Mark Wahlberg.
Like Byrne’s character, psychologist Marryam Chehelnabi listens patiently to her regular clients, interjecting occasional comments or pointed questions as three couples try to work out why they’re so angry or bored or hurt by each other.
Like In Treatment, it’s very well handled, gut-wrenchingly honest, and provocative – the finger you point at those on the couch always ends up pointing back at you.
Among the couples are Brendon and Scott (pictured above), two years together and six months engaged. Scott leads with, “When he’s not been drinking, he’d never say half the things he says when he’s drinking.”
Brendon doesn’t shrink back. He calmly explains the differences in their personalities, their expectations, and their jobs: “When I come home after shift work at 10am, it’s like 8pm for me. What you call morning drinking, is not the same for me.” But it gets murky when Scott admits to blackouts, and Brendon worries he might cheat during a blackout.
Doug and Cat are among the straight couples. Seated far apart, Cat says, “We don’t have sex very much at all.” Doug concurs: “I don’t please her. I don’t make her happy in sex.”
Marryam prods until Cat reveals she met Doug only months after her previous husband of just a few weeks was killed in a motorbike crash. “It’s like I have two lives. Doug is part 2, but part 1 has never been resolved.”
Marryam also has her equivalent of Byrne’s supervisor Gina (Dianne Wiest). We see another perspective of Brendon and Scott through the feedback of Marryam’s manager.
Yes, it’s a reality show but, undeniably, this one is real. Okay, and slightly voyeuristic. (MA15+, 6 x 25m eps)