The Emmy race has begun! Vulture is taking a close look at the contenders until nomination-round voting closes on July 13. This article was published on July 8, 2020, after Couples Therapy ’s first season. Since then, the set has been modified, but the principles of the office’s realistic design and how the cameras are hidden have remained in place.
The premise of Couples Therapy is deceptively simple: The creators of the Showtime docuseries just wanted to film couples as they had sessions with a really great therapist. If their cameras could be as unobtrusive as possible, they might even capture the intimate, compelling discoveries that can happen in therapy. All they had to do was design a set that didn’t feel like a set, so that even though the couples all agreed to be filmed, they’d be comfortable enough to forget the show and concentrate on the therapy.
It wasn’t so easy. If the couples didn’t act naturally while they met with therapist Orna Guralnik, the whole concept would fall apart, which meant Couples Therapy needed to find a way to film in a small, controlled space without the participants ever seeing any cameras. “We knew from the get-go that we were not going to be able to have cameras or any other people in the room,” says Josh Kriegman, executive producer and director.
They also needed to be able to catch every moment immediately, without redos or second takes. Perhaps most crucially, the room itself needed to feel like a real therapist’s offi.