Web Therapy

The thing about a show like this is it takes a certain degree of intelligence to watch.

Kudrow plays a darkly comic protagonist who is only out for herself. The jokes are subtle with the occasional obvious ploy thrown in to please the masses. The problem with a show like this is it involves a degree of wit from the watcher. Sarcastic humour, as a whole, is naturally complacent and, sadly, mainstream television these days lacks the vision to make shows like "Web Therapy" common place; particularly in the US which means the nature of its core humour is lost on most people.

The show itself has a very graspable storyline with vaguely understandable characters. It requires suspension of disbelief in certain areas but the very manipulative nature of our main character and how it effects those who are with-in her care makes for fascinating and hilarious watching.

Watch this show if you like excellent actors doing what they do best (with some awesome surprise cameos). Don't watch this show if you like to be bottle-fed obvious joke after obvious joke; they might be in there, but they are few and far between.

In concept, Web Therapy is simple and, many a time, dealing with quite real and serious situations. So, how is it so much fun? The show relies heavily on its actors and their improv skills. It's also not said enough - what a kind and intelligent human being Lisa Kudrow is. She must've done years worth of exploration in the nature of human life and relationships in order to portray such a vile person with such detail, hilarity and charisma. And what else can an artist so well-versed in comedy do out of all that, other than a hilarious stream of jokes?

It's the most classic form of sitcom - in that it's heavily partitioned and, essentially, a compilation of sketches, with stuff you don't hear jokes about a lot. Even setting the format of the show aside, it's a true innovation to the world of comedy. One for the textbooks.

If you enjoyed The Comeback or Veep, Web Therapy is your next piece of top-shelf entertainment.

Everything about this show is absolutely brilliant. The stellar cast, the intelligent writing and most of all the eerie view of the future it presents. Who could have possibly imagined "web therapy" would have actually become a thing??

I've never seen FRIENDS (Seriously) - though, in the occasional snippets I did manage to see, Lisa Kudrow's performance always stood out.

I watched THE COMEBACK, and, working in that business, I especially found it very spot-on, as to all the problems an actor faces - least of which is talent - including, ageism, and, all the politics behind the scenes.

It was sad to see that go, and, only recently got caught up with Ms. Kudrow's latest SHOWTIME series: WEB THERAPY.A wonderfully dysfunctionally hysterical replacement.

Ms. Kudrow knows - as, another of my favorites, Mary Tyler Moore - that you have to surround yourself with top notch cast members, and, on WEB THERAPY, she's got everyone from Victor Garber, to Alan Cummings, Dan Butinsky, Lily Tomlin (as her mother, 'Putsy Hodge'), and a lot more.

WEB THERAPY is a very dry, very biting type of comedy series, and Ms. Kudrow's Fiona Wallace is either the most self-absorbed lunatic, or a brilliant manipulator (watch what happens with her awful book), or both.

Either way, Ms. Kudrow's series - an 'in-the-know' viewer delight, should be MUCH better known than it is.

Lisa Kudrow is the Lucille Ball of our time. Unusual, distinctive, unafraid.

This show, which I only heard of last October (2011), is remarkable comedy.

Comedy is the art of making the unexpected hilarious. That's what this show does. In each episode, the premise is usually straightforward. Each time Fiona begins a session, we have immediate clarity on what the problem is. Hilarity then ensues, taking unexpected turn after unexpected turn - some cued by Kudrow's priceless brand of facial exasperation, others cued by some astonishing new fact that visibly upsets or enrages her.

I remember reading a take on I Love Lucy. Desi Arnaz explained that every episode opened with a perfectly common home-life dilemma. As fans know, nothing past that premise was ever common. Each week, Lucy made us believe that she's the housewife with X problem which, if solved, will change her life. All the better if the dilemma was posed by a possible show-biz break.

Cue Lisa K and the Lucy Ricardo'ish character Fiona. She is ambitious. The Internet is her show-biz - she always wants to break into it in a big way. She has an appalling lack of common sense. Kip has problems we could imagine Ricky having if he was a lead singer and star today.

In the end, both Lucy R. and Fiona W. are screwball characters whose humanity is immediately on display but who are tempted into vanity, errant ambition, and ill-fated schemes.

Web Therapy is comedy art. Hilarity at its zenith. I tell everyone I know to watch it.