The sheer lack of advertisement for Showtime's new half-hour comedy, "Web Therapy," might suggest there is nothing special about it.
Its timeslot goes a step further. Much of Showtime's original programming fills up the spots on Sunday nights and Monday nights, but "Web Therapy" is at a bit of a death slot, Tuesday nights at 11 p.m.
But like her fellow "Friends" cast mate Matt LeBlanc on "Episodes," Lisa Kudrow has found new comedic life with her jump to Showtime.
Potential viewers need to know up front: This is not a show for everyone.
HBO's "In Treatment" is a hard show to recommend because it is physically demanding on the viewer to stay enraptured by an episode of just a single conversation between two people.
"Web Therapy" uses the same basic philosophy, a series full of bottle episodes in one setting with just people conversing, but it tries to vary things up by having multiple three-minute conversations between Kudrow and the various supporting characters.
The show centers on Fiona Wallice (Kudrow), who comes off as a rich, narcissistic, hostile, yet bored, woman. She endeavors to fill her time by starting up a kooky enterprise, three-minute therapy sessions over the Internet. The sessions are held to three minutes because when she did 50-minute sessions, Fiona says, they were full of superfluous things like memories and feelings, which add up to nothing in her mind.
For people who call "In Treatment" daring for its format, the "Web Therapy" creators deserve even more points for their guts because viewers only see Fiona's computer screen. On her Mac, viewers see Fiona and whoever she is video chatting with. It remains to be seen whether "Web Therapy" will stick to this claustrophobic hook or stroll off the path like "In Treatment" occasionally does.
The main series strength is, ironically, its star. Kudrow, who puts on an amusingly fake-sounding elegant accent for the role, dives into the bumbling character's persona, while everyone else on screen plays the straight man.
Phoebe was easily the most annoying cast member on "Friends" back in the day, so it's a relief that Kudrow has embraced an entirely different character here.
Eventually the show will have to expand its characterization a bit more to remain entertaining, but for the pilot, this status quo provides laughs.
Another potential series difficulty is how much exposition to include in the therapy sessions. Since it is the pilot, some exposition to set the stage is expected. But that opening conversation with Fiona and her husband screamed exposition from time to time. More conversations that serve basically to give viewers information instead of to simply serve as scenes might prove a misstep. It is an easy mistake to make when writers are confined to a computer screen, which could be an interesting hook for the pilot but more limiting than funny later on.
The show also has got to stop titling segments. Before each conversation, the series shows a black screen with white text that serves as the title to each segment. More than once, the title either gives away the point of the segment or the segment's funniest line.
Ultimately "Web Therapy" is an amusing half hour, but it will be interesting to see how the show decides to grow from here. If it stays stuck in gimmick mode, it should not move past a first season. But the potential is certainly there for humor.
The show's series premiere is available for free via YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r-bjD2y95M or Showtime's official website at http://www.sho.com/site/order/preview.do#/Web_Therapy_s01_e01.
Three stars