Web Therapy

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.

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.

Dummies, this is not a sitcom or an improv, it's Matt Le Blanc telling Lisa Kudrow that making a web based talk show with a twist is not a career. Am I the only one that got this show? They are talking about real stuff in their personal lives under the guise that one is a patient talking to a web based shrink. The stuff these people talk about on this show could start a riot. Just Like Steven Colbert. I recommend you watch it again. This show should be the future, Lisa,please make TV shows evolve from this reality era and make web content as valid as the rest of formats. TV is dead, long live the internet. If you don't get it, you're missing out. This show is a blast.

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??

This is not a show that will spoon-feed jokes to you, and you will not be assisted by helpful cutaways that walk you through things. You're given the facts, and you're expected to follow along like an adult. That is just one of the things that makes this show at the top of my list. The jokes are often subtle, sarcastic, witty and occasionally thrown in your face. Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinski are a top-notch combo on an excellent show for people who like to think for themselves. I look forward to seeing the interesting and funny characters back on the web cam in 2015!

Try this show out if you like: "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", "Portlandia", "Absolutely Fabulous"