Ellen Gray: King Henry is back, with his queens

THE TUDORS. 9 p.m. Sunday, Showtime.

TWO WIVES down, four to go.

That's the score as Showtime's "The Tudors" returns Sunday for its third season, with Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) embarking on his third marriage, to Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis).

He's still a fine figure of a man, in keeping with Meyers' insistence that he's "not going to turn into the [Hans] Holbein painting."

His new queen, though, has a slightly different face than she did last season, Wallis having replaced actress Anita Briem in the role of the woman who gave Henry his only legitimate male heir.

That may be worth a Trivial Pursuit question in years to come - how many actresses played Henry's wives in "The Tudors"? - but Meyers, who appeared rock star-thin during a Showtime party at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel in January, was already fast-forwarding through the coming season.

Sure, Henry enjoyed his time with Jane - "after Anne Boleyn, she was like a breath of fresh air" - but the much-married king has miles of women to go before he sleeps.

(Or before, to give away the ending, that ominous-looking sore on his leg helps kill him.)

After Jane dies, the king meets "a couple of strumpets," Meyers said.

"And then Anne of Cleves happens, and then Catherine Howard also happens, in this season," he continued. "Catherine Howard is the most provocative Lolita girl you'll ever see. She's outrageous."

Some history buffs may find it equally outrageous that Anne of Cleves, the quickly discarded wife whom Henry's said to have referred to as a "Flanders mare," is being played by the coltish Joss Stone.

But the British soul singer, who popped up on Fox's "American Idol" just last week, wasn't miscast, insisted Meyers.

Anne of Cleves, he said, "was very attractive. She was just too German for [Henry]. They just rubbed each other up the wrong way."

Three seasons in, the Irish actor has gotten used to sparring with those who suggest that "The Tudors," while positively wonky on the politics of the period, paints too pretty a picture of the players. (Not that there's anything pretty about ulcerating sores.)

Meyers holds forth easily on the role of marriage in Henry's time and on his own belief that our impression of the much-married king has been too reliant on one particular portrait.

Did he know all this British history when he started?

"No," he said. "Every day's a school day."

Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) is tired of sitting in a chair listening to other people complain.

Which wouldn't be so much of a problem if that weren't his job.

As HBO's "In Treatment" launches its second season at 9 p.m. Sunday, Paul's living in Brooklyn, N.Y., and sleeping on the couch where his patients sit during the day.

That's what happens when you spend the first season screwing up your marriage back in Maryland.

Newly divorced and with a whole raft of new patients who don't think they belong in therapy any more than the last ones did, the doctor's also facing a malpractice suit, one that "In Treatment" fans won't find surprising. He's also weighing the pros and cons of getting back into therapy himself, with his old frenemy Gina (Dianne Wiest, back in the role that won her an Emmy).

Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

OK, maybe not. But though I took an almost instant dislike to all but one of Paul's patients last season - and wasn't too crazy about him, either, by the end - I nevertheless became weirdly addicted to the five-episode-a-week series, which was adapted from an Israeli TV drama.

Watching is sort of like eavesdropping on strangers, but without having to leave the house (or work for the government). It didn't hurt, either, that the episodes, which run a half-hour apiece, could be consumed in quantity and pretty much around the clock.

But for those few who still believe in fixed TV schedules, HBO's made "In Treatment" even easier to remember this season, scheduling Paul's first two patients, Mia (Hope Davis) and April (Alison Pill) for Sundays and two others, Oliver (Aaron Shaw) and Walter (John Mahoney) for Mondays, along with a Paul-Gina session.

The patients, too, are easier to take. With no one in sight that Paul's likely to get mushy over - the way he did so disastrously with Laura (Melissa George) last season - we're free to admire Mahoney's artistry as a CEO with panic attacks or to root for young Oliver, whose parents need therapy more than he does.

But maybe not as much as those of us who are just listening in. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.