Is it normal to enjoy weeping lovers’ psychoanalysis? No. Does it make for incredibly powerful, sumptuous TV? It certainly does
I don’t know about you but, personally, I want to start my year watching other people who have demonstrably made a mess of their lives. So I am thankful to the
BBC for snapping up Couples Therapy (Monday, 10pm, BBC Two), the 2019 Showtime series that is custom-made for the early days of the year when you want to see other people weep on a sofa in front of their partner. Is it sick of me to want to watch that? Very possibly, very possibly. But one episode of this and you will be as terminally horrible as I am, too.
The format, but quickly, because the clue is in the title: a diverse cast of couples have for some bewildering reason agreed to have their journey through therapy recorded and televised, overseen by relationship expert and very empathetic nodder Dr Orna Guralnik. In the wrong hands, this would be a schlocky inversion of First Dates, where you see people tentatively break up instead of play footsie. But it is shot so sumptuously and gorgeously (and all the couples are so casting-agency perfect) that I had to pause a couple of minutes in to check I wasn’t actually watching some weird under-the-radar legacy TV show scripted by a genius. But no, no. That is a real man, in a short-sleeved shirt with strange buttons on the sleeve, saying: “I am the easiest person to deal with. All I want is … zero responsibility, and all the sex I want without any work.”