I have seen some episodes of the HBO version of the Israeli program Be Tipul and I have never really liked it. It seems forced and airless. There is a dead energy to the whole enterprise; it feels more like a whispered, solemn confessional than something that happens to people every day.

But tonight at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the Pen World Voices Festival, I saw an episode of the original series Be Tipul and was blown away. The writing by Yael Hedaya was magnificent, the young female patient and the shrink were amazing actors, and the whole thing felt as if we were a fly in the wall of that...