HBO to let you choose whether to binge or go weekly on the last 8 episodes of In Treatment
HBO’s In Treatment has always been a show with some interesting thoughts on TV distribution. In its earliest, Gabriel Byrne-starring incarnation, the series went so far as to air five nights a week, with one night reserved for each of therapist Paul’s patients (and one for himself, because dude assuredly had some issues). The show’s revival season, centered on Uzo Aduba’s Dr. Brooke Taylor, is a little more conventional in its scheduling, although it still compresses four half-hour episodes into a pair of hour-long blocks, releasing on Sundays and Mondays each week. Now, though, the series has apparently examined the ongoing debates over the differences between, and benefits of, the various binge and weekly TV release models that have been going back and forth in recent years, and decided to ask, hey: How are you feeling about receiving the season’s final 8 episodes all at once?
That is, the show is opting to somehow go both the weekly and the all-at-once routes with its upcoming final batch of episodes. On the one hand, Aduba’s series will continue to roll out on HBO as it has been previously, with four episodes per week coming on Sunday and Monday nights. But on June 14, right after the last episode of that week’s block drops, the final 8 episodes will be added on to HBO Max. So if you just can’t wait to see how the season’s stories wrap up, you can dive in and get your fill, or you can wait, enjoy the weekly drip of content, and watch along on the network. You have the power here, reader. You’re in control of this situation.
Anyway, this will probably generate some fascinating data for Warner Media about how people want to engage with shows like this; fingers crossed that they recognize the healing power of sharing some of those juicy details with us.