Web Therapy

As it is, some of the sharpness, the performance-art humor of the Web series is lost in translation, but even in the new form, it remains something remarkable, if not revolutionary, anchored by Kudrow, who is not so much inhabiting a character but an ethos--the self-help movement by way of Merrill Lynch and YouTube, with outtakes thrown in at the end for good measure.

It's a static look that makes these half-hour shows a bit tough to endure visually (don't try watching two episodes back-to-back). This format lends itself better to web shorts but it is fun to see Dr. Wallice's world expanded, especially for fans of comedy that doesn't telegraph a joke well in advance.

The cameos often are amusing, and so is Kudrow, but someone at Showtime evidently forgot to ask whether a one-joke webisode can or should be expanded into a one-joke TV series. This one feels like a strrrretch.

The episodes play out in a series of uneven vignettes: droll, ironic and twisted. It's great to see Kudrow back on TV, but this visually static and comically stunted gimmick wears thin pretty quickly.

While Web Therapy is certainly clever and occasionally funny, it lacks both the nerve and verve of "The Comeback."

Ambiently amusing but generally inert, the show is badly in need of a hard-edged producer to tell the series' creators that they cannot get by on charm, no matter how much of that precious quality is imported by such guest stars as Lily Tomlin, Rashida Jones, and Bob Balaban.

You end up with a visually uninteresting half-hour filled with rambling conversations, as the actors struggle to advance what little story there is while slipping in the all-too-occasional funny remark.

While the project had its devotees in its original form, the first four legs of a 10-episode flight feel stilted, claustrophobic and only fitfully amusing as stitched together for Showtime.