Planning Board member and book editor Amy Ryan thinks she has the expertise and skills to replace Penny Rich on the Chapel Hill Town Council.

She is one of five people who have expressed interest in serving out the remainder of Rich's four-year term, which ends in December 2013. Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt is expected to set a deadline for applications at the council's Dec. 3 meeting.

Ryan, who also has served on the Community Design Commission, participated in the 2020 planning process and most recently led the Central West small area focus group, said development will be the council's biggest issue next year.

"I'm really concerned about some of the ways we're going about it," she said. "It's really important to get substantive (community) input" before a project reaches the council.

Another potential applicant, Planning Board member Jason Baker, said Wednesday that he will back former Council member Sally Greene for Rich's seat.
 

HBO's excellent drama "In Treatment" returns tonight, with Gabriel Bryne's psychiatrist Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) still struggling with, well, with pretty much everything.

Paul has all new patients (though one fewer than last season) and he no longer has Gina (Dianne Wiest) to lean on/rant at. But he still feels suffocated by his patients, and by the circumstances of his own life. With last season's frivolous malpractice suit behind him, Paul's inner struggles this season include fears involving a potential health crisis and changes within his family.

There's also a good new lineup of patients, the best of whom is an Indian man who is brought to Paul by his meek son and domineering daughter-in-law to be treated for depression after the death of his wife and his forced relocation from Calcutta to New York. Acclaimed actor Irrfan Kahn ("Slumdog Millionaire") is mesmerizing as Sunil. If you watch only one of Paul's sessions this season, make it this one.