@joelkeller Published March 4, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET Where to Stream: Blue Therapy Powered by Reelgood More On: therapy Stream It Or Skip It: ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ on HBO Max, a Nerve-wracking Anxiety-Comedy Starring a Frayed Rose Byrne Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Couples Therapy’ Season 4 Part 2 On Paramount+, Featuring More Couples Working Out Their Issues With Help From Orna Guralnik Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Shrinking’ Season 2 On Apple TV+, Where Jimmy Deals With The Results Of His Unconventional Therapy Methods Stream It Or Skip It: ‘UnPrisoned’ Season 2 On Hulu, Where Kerry Washington Is A Therapist Dealing With Her Ex-Con Dad, Anxious Son And Sputtering Love Life In Blue Therapy, seven couples who are having relationship issues submit to couples therapy in the office of Karen Doherty, with cameras rolling (Yes, that sounds familiar; more on that in a bit). All of the couples have a big issue that’s keeping them from trusting each other completely and threatens to upsend their relationships, and they are looking for Doherty to help them get to the bottom of those issues.
Opening Shot: A definition of the term “Blue Therapy” that isn’t a definition.
The Gist: We meet three of the couples in the first episode of Blue Therapy. Daisy and Jay, together 3 years, have a one-year-old daughter, and they make it sound like everything is a dream, but it soon comes out during the first session with Doherty that there have been issues with Jay’s levels of taking responsibility. Daisy’s resentments stem from the day after their daughter was born, when Jay took 4 hours away from the hospital to get a tattoo on his arm. But it also comes out that their daughter was unplanned, and they were broken up when Daisy found out she was pregnant. Doherty asks them if they’d be together if it weren’t for their daughter.
Maria and Viktor, together for 7 years, seem to be pretty content; they even operate a couples-oriented social media feed together. But Viktor has no desire to get married, even though Maria does. Because of his insistence that nothing would change if they got married, anyway, Maria’s parents have a chilly relationship with him; for his part, Viktor isn’t in communication with his family.
Mike and Yasmin are engaged and have been together for 5 years, with a kid of their own and an older child from his previous relationship. She makes twice the salary he does, and he’s in a lot of debt, both of which make him feel shame for not being able to provide for his family. But he’s also kept information from Yasmin, and he drops a huge bomb about his job status during the session.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It’s pretty easy to say that Blue Therapy is a lot like Showtime’s hit Couples Therapy, with a few cosmetic differences. It turns out that there has been one form of Blue Therapy or another going back to 2021, first on YouTube, then on the UK’s Channel 4. Like the original series, this version shows Black couples getting therapy.
Our Take: Blue Therapy takes the Couples Therapy format and “realityizes” it, taking the relatively low-key style of the Showtime series and adding a loud pop reality show soundtrack and “confessional” interviews with the couples and Doherty on a long couch.
Other than that? We don’t see much of a difference between the two shows. When we’re in-session with Doherty and a couple we stay there for awhile, with much of the loud soundtrack subdued or silenced. Doherty probes with a bit more of a standard, “How does that statement make you feel?” style than Couples Therapy‘s Dr. Orna Guralnik does, but she still is able to probe and get people to open up, especially the men that are inevitably the more reluctant ones to be there.
One thing we’re wondering is if the cameras are openly present in Doherty’s office or if they’re hidden behind two-way mirrors, like they are in Guralnik’s soundstage-turned-office. We always liked the vibe that the clients knew the cameras were there, but the fact that they weren’t out in the open helped people relax. Given that it doesn’t seem that Doherty’s clients don’t seem to be in a performative mode, we’re thinking that the cameras are in discreet positions in this show, too.
Another thing we noticed is that, at least in the first episode, none of the couples are married. Was that a purposeful choice or a coincidence? All the couples are relatively young, even if they’ve been together for a few years, and it feels like some of the members of these couples operate on the idea that they’re still single rather than in a committed relationship. Older couples have more deep-rooted issues, ones that tend to come from manifestations of traumas from their younger years. The couples here seem to have some pretty basic young couple problems: Commitment, finances, and trust. It’s not as fun to watch a deep dive into issues like these.
Performance Worth Watching: Our jaws did drop when Mike dropped some big news about his job status to Yasmin. That type of lie can be a relationship killer.
Parting Shot: Yasmin is reeling at Mike’s news.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Maria, for saying that the promise rings Viktor gave her “should be called ‘Shut up’ rings.”
Most Pilot-y Line: Really, the pulsating pop music soundtrack sounds totally out of place on a show like this.
Our Call: SKIP IT. While we did get a little invested in the first three couples we saw on Blue Therapy, watching it just made us want another season of the relatively Zen-like Couples Therapy.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
