Although "The Equalizer" and "Finder of Lost Loves" are different kinds of prime time fiction--urban thriller on the one hand and fantasy melodrama on the other--they share an underlying dramatic structure and symbolic problematic in their repeated enactments of a therapeutic cure overseen by a mediating, authority figure. The protagonists in both cases are engaged by clients under the alibi of offering investigative/detective services; and their ability and willingness to direct a therapeutic cure is determined in direct proportion to their own lack which is specifically delineated in the course of the programs. But the therapeutic problematic is not limited to domestic melodrama and fantasy productions: in "The Love Boat" and "Hotel," for example, the therapeutic process has been narrowly aligned with the economic and social power interests of a few main characters. The nature of the therapeutic process constructed/represented on television is complex and problematic, as an abstracted and multiform therapeutic ideology informs the narrative as a whole, while the association of individual characters with positions of authority/subordination varies. The multiplication of the therapeutic problematic within specific programs disperses the positions any single character or viewer may hold; fantasy turns in on itself where the underlying problematic involves finding one's place in a familial and social order. This process is exacerbated with the proliferation of therapeutic discourses through a range of television genres and programs. (20 end notes) (CGD)