This May, the series In Treatment returns for its fourth season to HBO and will also be available to stream on HBO Max.

Although considered a fourth season, this series is a reimagining and is set in present-day Los Angeles. The show stars Uzo Aduba as therapist Dr. Brooke Taylor. Dr. Taylor’s sessions bring diverse patients dealing with modern issues, including the current pandemic and other recent major events.

In preparation of the series premiere, executive producers Jennifer Schuur and Josh Allen, along with star Aduba, recently talked to journalists during a virtual TCA panel as part of the winter press tour which SciFi Vision attended.

The executive producers talked about the decision to not only move the series to Los Angeles, but also the decision to feature a black female therapist and the challenges involved.


Schuur talked about the location change and about some of the events the show will deal with. “…As we sort of approached reimagining the show, we wanted to make sure that our priorities were to honor the original American version, but also make sure that we were updating it and making it feel like a show that is being made in 2021.  Whether that be through setting alone, sunny Los Angeles versus a brownstone in New York, or also having a more diverse cast on that front.  We felt like that was really important. We have an opportunity to say some very important things about our particular time. We have racial justice movements and the Me Too movement happening.  We talk about toxic masculinity and addiction.  We cover a lot of topics all set in the present-day.  When it airs, it is supposed to be that time period. We just felt like that was a way to update the show in a great way.”

Allen, who created the character of Brooke Taylor, talked about what is important about her. “I come from a family of people who needed therapy and didn’t know they needed therapy.  So, often growing up it was very much like, “Oh.”  When I started seeing my first therapist years ago, my family was like, “Well, you’re not crazy, so why are you seeing a therapist?” There’s such a stigma attached to it, especially in communities of color, so it felt important to me, personally, to put that on television to show that we all need this.  For example, it’s part of the reason why Brooke has a pro bono patient, even though it doesn’t turn out the way she intends. I wanted to, in reimagining the show, as Jen said, make sure that we were expanding the idea of who gets access to therapy and under what circumstances to destigmatize it. We especially, as Jen said, in 2021 need it.  I think putting that particular face on it, hopefully, will do something in that regard.  That was the thought behind creating this particular therapist and also creating a diverse patient pool that she works with.”

The executive producers also talked about defining the reimagining as Season four.

According to Schuur, “We’re not trying to leave our predecessor in the dust.  We are grateful to them.  We admire that show in myriad ways.  We feel like we would not be here without them.  There was no way to go forward by starting over from scratch.  We needed to have Season 4.”

Allen agreed. “We wanted to preserve the connective tissue between the first three seasons that everybody watched and loved…There are so many different ways in which we are honoring the first three seasons and not trying to erase that at all.  As a matter of fact, we wouldn’t be here without that. That’s why it felt right to call it Season 4, because shows reinvent themselves, especially when they take a decade off.  We really wanted to make sure that people who loved, enjoyed, and were moved by the first three seasons to feel like, “Oh, there’s some connective tissue here, and I can still find a home here as a viewer.””

At the panel they also discussed how Dr. Taylor brings herself into the room with her patients. According to Schuur, “She believes that self-disclosure, and without asking anything of the patients themselves to take care of her. Offering her own life experience and her feelings in a session actually creates more honesty with her patients and an ability for them to become more vulnerable and open with her.”

Aduba added, “She brings her own experiences and her own story in part into the room…Even in this pandemic, as you hear her say in the show, she shows up for her patients.  She shows up for them no matter what, and in this instance, even during quarantine, during lockdown, she’s shows up dressed, ready to be of service to them. I think that also extends as far as her opening them up to her own experiences to help invite them to come closer to the things that they’re looking to confront.  That being said, I think what’s also been interesting in doing this show is that you also get to watch how that type of therapy and treatment is exercised from patient-to-patient and session-to-session.”

For more, be sure to check out In Treatment when it premieres in May. You can also read the edited transcript of the panel below.


HBO and HBO Max
TCA Winter Press Tour

In Treatment (HBO)

Jennifer Schuur (EP)
Josh Allen (EP)
Uzo Aduba (Stars as Dr. Brooke Taylor)

Los Angeles, CA
February 10, 2021

QUESTION: This is a question for everyone, because I want to ask about the wardrobe choices you made in the episodes we saw, especially, the first one when she's doing her session…You know, the fact that she's not wearing sweatpants for that episode, it feels like a very specific character choice, and I'd love to hear what went into defining that look.

JENNIFER SCHUUR: I mean, I think this was an idea surrounded by the fact that she has moved from her office space.  That's where she usually practices, and she brought her practice into her home when COVID hit. If she is seeing patients in her home, Brooke needs to look as professional as she would in her office, and we all want to delineate those moments in our life from our workday into our personal time.  And I think we really thought very carefully about that. We also think Uzo has really brought that character to life through her wardrobe as well.  I don't know if you want to speak to that, Uzo, but...

UZO ADUBA: I think it’s a fixture of who Brooke is, in terms of how she views moving through the world, even if her professional world moves into her home.  She has a desire to be the custodian of what Jennifer was saying, of those delineating lines between home life and work space. I think there's something also to be said about patients coming into a therapist’s home. There's a face that therapists wear when they're treating and a sort of a mask that protects from judgment and any sort of feeling that the patient might interpret from them so that they feel like they're getting a compassionate, open ear.  And I think this is just one of the ways in which she wears and presents her mask, but you'll learn more as the show continues on.

QUESTION:  Uzo, when you're sitting across from these actors doing these very dramatic moments, what goes through your mind?  And do you want to like act really?  Because you're not allowed to.  You aren't able to kind of interact with that.  So, what do you think about it?  Do you go, “Oh, my god, I'm on the front row of a very great performance?”  Or what is that like for you?

UZO ADUBA: Without question, the actors in this show are absolutely incredible.  They're fierce.  They're dynamic.  They are nuanced.  They are strong.  They just shine brilliantly.  You do feel like you get the opportunity to sit in the front row to watch them just be impressive quite frankly in a variety of ways, not only with their acting, but also with the level of preparation that they bring to their performance and the different dynamics that they bring into their very long speeches that they have to prepare. It’s amazing. It’s my favorite part, because they do it with such fire.  They have been gifted with incredible words by Josh and Jennifer and the rest of our team.  It’s wonderful to just get to see. They kill it every time, period, point blank. They kill it. It’s really, really great.

QUESTION: This is a bit of a two‑parter.  The first is, can you talk about the decision, not just to move the show to Los Angeles, but specifically to feature a black female therapist?  I say that knowing that there are specific challenges, and you show these in the first three episodes, that black women as therapists do face in this field.

JENNIFER SCHUUR: Well, I’ll take the Los Angeles part, and then I'm going to leave the Brooke part to Josh.  On the Los Angeles side, I mean, look, as we sort of approached reimagining the show, we wanted to make sure that our priorities were to honor the original American version, but also make sure that we were updating it and making it feel like a show that is being made in 2021.  Whether that be through setting alone, sunny Los Angeles versus a brownstone in New York, or also having a more diverse cast on that front.  We felt like that was really important. We have an opportunity to say some very important things about our particular time. We have racial justice movements and the Me Too movement happening.  We talk about toxic masculinity and addiction.  We cover a lot of topics all set in the present-day.  When it airs, it is supposed to be that time period. We just felt like that was a way to update the show in a great way, but Josh created the character, Brooke Taylor, and so he can talk a little bit about that.

JOSH ALLEN:  I mean, yes. I come from a family of people who needed therapy and didn’t know they needed therapy.  So, often growing up it was very much like, “Oh.”  When I started seeing my first therapist years ago, my family was like, “Well, you’re not crazy, so why are you seeing a therapist?” There’s such a stigma attached to it, especially in communities of color, so it felt important to me, personally, to put that on television to show that we all need this.  For example, it’s part of the reason why Brooke has a pro bono patient, even though it doesn’t turn out the way she intends. I wanted to, in reimagining the show, as Jen said, make sure that we were expanding the idea of who gets access to therapy and under what circumstances to destigmatize it. We especially, as Jen said, in 2021 need it.  I think putting that particular face on it, hopefully, will do something in that regard.  That was the thought behind creating this particular therapist and also creating a diverse patient pool that she works with.

QUESTION:  This question is kind of directed towards, I guess, all three of you in the sense that why is In Treatment considered to be Season four as opposed to - because you just mentioned this is a reimagining, as opposed to being Season 1 of, potentially, an ongoing new series?

JENNIFER SCHUUR: Well, we are certainly using the title. Josh always calls it the mothership; we’re not trying to leave our predecessor in the dust.  We are grateful to them.  We admire that show in myriad ways.  We feel like we would not be here without them.  There was no way to go forward by starting over from scratch.  We needed to have Season 4.

JOSH ALLEN:  Yeah.  I agree with everything Jen just said.  That’s exactly it, and we wanted to preserve the connective tissue between the first three seasons that everybody watched and loved. I mean, for example, we even had several meetings about making sure we brought in the same wave machine that Paul had in his office.  Now that’s in Brooke’s house, there are so many different ways in which we are honoring the first three seasons and not trying to erase that at all.  As a matter of fact, we wouldn’t be here without that. That’s why it felt right to call it Season 4, because shows reinvent themselves, especially when they take a decade off.  We really wanted to make sure that people who loved, enjoyed, and were moved by the first three seasons to feel like, “Oh, there’s some connective tissue here, and I can still find a home here as a viewer.”

QUESTION: I just wanted to ask about the sort of type of therapy that you guys are portraying, and how you decided the sort of clinical strategies you guys were going to use, and if you worked with psychologists about it.

JENNIFER SCHUUR: We did.  We had a consultant that we would turn to when we had questions about how a therapist would approach a particular problem with a patient, but I would offer that certainly we used different modalities. And Uzo, you can speak a little bit to what you have been able to experiment with as a therapist on the show. We have Brooke, a therapist who is different than Dr. Paul Weston in the original.  I think Dr. Brooke Taylor brings much more of herself into the room with her patients, and she believes that self-disclosure, and without asking anything of the patients themselves to take care of her. Offering her own life experience and her feelings in a session actually creates more honesty with her patients and an ability for them to become more vulnerable and open with her. Uzo, if you want to talk about anything specifically, that would be amazing.

UZO ADUBA:  Yeah, I think you hit it right on the head.  I think that’s exactly right; she brings her own self into the room. She brings her own experiences and her own story in part into the room, and I think that circles back also to the very first question in terms of her attire.  Even in this pandemic, as you hear her say in the show, she shows up for her patients.  She shows up for them no matter what, and in this instance, even during quarantine, during lockdown, she’s shows up dressed, ready to be of service to them. I think that also extends as far as her opening them up to her own experiences to help invite them to come closer to the things that they’re looking to confront.  That being said, I think what’s also been interesting in doing this show is that you also get to watch how that type of therapy and treatment is exercised from patient-to-patient and session-to-session.

QUESTION:  If the pandemic has shown us anything, people watch TV and, in the case of this kind of show, I can imagine people even see it as sort of therapy session for them themselves.  That being said, talk about the responsibility you feel in there’s so many different approaches to dealing with problems. Who had the final word on what words were going to be said in dealing with these very serious issues?

JENNIFER SCHUUR: We worked with a team of writers.  Josh and I worked with some beautiful playwrights; some beautiful long-time screenwriters, in order to sort of craft these characters to decide what are the things we feel most compelled to talk about given this forum, which is really special.  It’s really an opportunity to be able to talk about the things that are touching us presently in a very deep and personal and meaningful way. There was a lot of thought that went into who we were going to treat as patients this season and what Brooke would be also dealing with throughout her journey over the course of the season as well.  It was really a group effort, I would say, and then we got beautiful words from all of our writers that made it so simple to look at it and say this is exactly what we’re doing.  This is right and it’s meaningful.

QUESTION:  This is for Uzo.  Gabriel Byrne was very candid throughout the original run of the show about what a challenge this role was, just sort of how exhausting it could be to be in every scene of every episode, to have to do so much active listening throughout, and sort of he came to the end of each year not sure if he was going to be able to continue or not.  From your perspective, how much of a challenge was this part?

UZO ADUBA:  Okay.  Honestly, Jen and Josh have heard me say this a thousand times already, but this is the first time I’m now saying it publicly. It sounds like I’ve rehearsed this, but it’s really just because we’ve been talking about it. [laughs] This is easily one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had in my life, the hardest things I’ve ever worked on in terms of the preparation and all the things that you just listed.  But the thing about it, is I can’t make that statement without absolutely making the statement - and this is true for the entire cast - that everyone in this show is working so hard, so intensely, so ferociously, and delivering, I might add. I cannot make that statement without also saying that it is also one of the most satisfying, fulfilling experiences I’ve also ever had, more than I could ever say on this Zoom call.

This project came into my life at a time that was needed and has brought an excitement and an energy - there's a thrill.  It’s theatrical when you go to work. It’s that nervous feeling you’d feel in an episode or a scene of something, every single day we sit down.  I’m going to leave you fine people in a little bit and go to work, and the butterflies are going to come back in my stomach.  You know what I mean?  It’ll be like, “Here we go,” and I’m going to get that feeling. [laughs]

It’s nice to have that all the time.  It really is, and it stretches you.  It’s making me grow, so I’m grateful for it.

JENNIFER SCHUUR: I have to jump in and say that having Uzo at the helm, the heart, and the center of the show, we could not have gotten luckier.  I mean, I wish we could walk you through the process on this show that we go through week to week.  We shoot our episodes in two days.  Those sessions happen over two days.  Most half-hour television shows get at least five, six, seven days to shoot their episodes. Uzo shows up on set every single day, knowing her lines somehow. It is truly a miracle, and we watch her work magic every single day.  I’m almost getting a little weepy.  It is just such an honor.  It is an honor to be partnered with her on this and watch her coauthor this character with us.  It is truly magnificent.

JOSH ALLEN:  Yes, and Jen, you’re leaving out that as soon as cut is called, she’s running her lines for the next episode.

JENNIFER SCHUUR: I know.

JOSH ALLEN:  She’s walking through the hallway on her way back to her trailer running lines for two episodes later.  I know this is such a cliché, but I do not know how she does it, but I’m glad she’s doing it.  I’m grateful.  So, you’re not the only grateful one, Uzo.

UZO ADUBA:  Thank you.