Steve Carell trades comedic ensembles for a claustrophobic two-hander in this limited series, playing a psychotherapist who becomes his own patient's prisoner.
What is The Patient about?
The Patient opens with therapist Alan Strauss waking up chained in a basement, put there by a client who wants him to treat one specific problem: an urge to kill that he cannot control on his own. Confined to a single room for most of the ten-episode run, Alan has to apply the tools of his profession under conditions no therapy session was built for, turning each conversation into a negotiation for information, trust, and eventually his own survival. The compressed setting and short episode lengths keep the tension tight rather than sprawling, with flashbacks to Alan's own family filling in who he is outside the room he can't leave.
About the cast
Steve Carell anchors the series as Alan, working almost entirely opposite Domhnall Gleeson's captor across the show's confined setting. Linda Emond, Laura Niemi, Andrew Leeds, and David Alan Grier round out the supporting cast, largely appearing through the flashback sequences that open up Alan's life beyond the basement.
Context & significance
Created by Joel Fields, the miniseries structures its ten episodes as short, tightly wound chapters rather than a sprawling season, a format that suits its single-location premise. It sits in the crime-drama space but leans on psychological tension over action, built around two performers working in close quarters for most of the runtime. The short, roughly 22-minute episode length keeps each chapter focused on a single beat in the standoff rather than stretching the material thin.
Watching The Patient on Ktime
The Patient streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, so Farsi-speaking viewers can follow the confined, dialogue-heavy series either way, whether they prefer to hear the performances in Farsi or read along in the original English. A free K-Time account is all that's needed to watch; the page and this guide are readable without logging in.