Gabriel Byrne has won critical plaudits and a whole new set of adoring fans thanks to his starring role on the HBO therapy series "In Treatment," which ends its successful first season run this week.

It's certainly been hard work for Byrne filming the five nights a week series, in which his psychiatrist character Dr. Paul Weston is in every scene, so he's probably glad of the break. Though HBO hasn't committed to a second season, "In Treatment" has lots and lots of buzz so it seems a fairly safe bet that they'll re-up for another round next year.

"It's a delightful kind of surprise that people like it," Byrne told The Los Angeles Times last week.

But don't ask him to watch the finished product. The only time he's seen any of "In Treatment" on film was during a recent appearance on Charlie Rose's talk show.

When he doesn't watch, he says, his performance "stays in that place where it can't be attacked in my head. Therefore it's like a stage performance. My memory of it is totally protected. As soon as I start to look at it, that shatters. Then I'm full of doubt and say I shouldn't have done that."

The show's honchos, Byrne said, asked him to swap his soft Irish brogue for an American accent, an idea which he promptly nixed.

His engrossing portrayal of therapist Dr. Weston, who offers advice but is clearly far from perfect himself, brought home the fact that, in life, everyone wins sometimes . . . and everyone loses sometimes as well.

"The fact of life is, we lose everything," he said. "People we love. People who love us. I've lost people very close to me. And I've lost things I never thought I would lose. I have known failure. And I have known success of a kind. What I wanted to bring to that man was a sense of, at the end of the day we're all united by our common humanity."