Tom Felton and Minka Kelly as a couple with big problems in DirectTV's "Full Circle."
DirecTV's new series “Full Circle” comes as a most welcome surprise.
It’s a multistory drama that writer Neil LaBute has not structured in conventional form. It explores pivotal moments in the lives of 11 people through 10 sequential conversations, each between two of those people.
Person one talks to person two, person two talks to person three, person three talks to person four, and so on.
Each conversation takes place across a table in a mythical restaurant, Ellipsis. Sometimes the subject matter bleeds over extensively from one conversation to the next, sometimes only incidentally.
The opening conversation is between Bridgette (Minka Kelly) and Tim (Tom Felton). He’s returning to England, which will end their affair and leave her with her neglectful and obnoxious husband, a lawyer named Stanley (Julian McMahon).
Tim wants her to go to England with him. She wavers.
The second dinner is between Bridgette and Stanley. She tells him she wants a divorce. He explodes, then tries to sweet-talk her back. She tells him no, he’s just too married to his work. She denies having any other love interest.
The third dinner, a few weeks later, has Stanley meeting with a client, a famous and equally obnoxious comedian named Jace (David Boreanaz) whose career is jeopardized by a joke that got him labeled anti-gay.
Stories built entirely on conversation can be as dreadful as “My Dinner With Andre” or as rich as “In Treatment.” “Full Circle” comes much closer to the latter.
Not all the characters are sympathetic, which helps, and some of the conversation gets uncomfortable. But the actors, who later will include Ally Sheedy, Kate Walsh and Cheyenne Jackson, make us believe their troubling, grownup dramas.
It’s a half hour you won’t regret spending.
dhinckley@nydailynews.com
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