Dani Santino (Callie Thorne) is a suburban mom who is picking up the pieces of her life. She's divorcing her cheating husband. Her teenage kids (Hannah Marks, Patrick Johnson) are becoming a handful. A professional football team is having trouble with their wide receiver TK (Mehcad Brooks) and they call in the suburban psychotherapist to help. There's the hot trainer Matthew Donnally (Marc Blucas) and the mysterious fixer Nico Careles (Scott Cohen) on the team.I like most of the characters even the standard annoying teenage kids. I like the love triangle they set up. I really like TK. The first two seasons is basically a serial where Dani works on TK and everything else as well as a procedural where Dani treats a new client every week. There are a lot of changes in the third season. The football team is sidelines when she's fired from the team. The family is gone when the kids leave. The love triangle is gone. Only TK and Nico remain while they add John Stamos as the sports agent guru Connor McClane. It's an understandable Hail Mary to revitalize a borderline show but it's ultimately a failure. The last season is cut to only 10 episodes. It was a nice show before the change. It wasn't a bad show after the change either. It just lost too many characters that the fans care about.

I think it is great that they're writing in a gay character and I believe it would have been a wonderful story line. However, the way the show approached this seemed forced and unnatural. The character they used this year has bounced from one personality to another. First he was an asshole antagonist, to a friend, to now gay. Make up your mind, guys! I wish they would have been more thoughtful with such a sensitive and intriguing (sp?) subject. They could have done so much more with it and instead it's just forced and superficial. Really? I don't write for a living and I could have come up with a better story (actually stories) line. Either somebody in an upper office who doesn't know what they're doing is making decisions or they need a better writing crew. Either way, somebody doesn't know WTF they're doing.

Pleasant if fundamentally flawed show. The basic problem with this show is that tries to combine the blue sky appeal of other USA network shows while combining sometimes serious psychotherapy. As a result, the show has serious tonal issues and ends up not being very good at either. However, the show manages to still be moderately enjoyable because of one reason: casting. I feel that in television (not so much in movies unless it's a romantic comedy), casting talented actors and having sympathetic characters can go a long way and can forgive a multitude of sins. Army Wives in particular is a great example of this (and has a more talented cast than this show), but this show really works well at the top because of Callie Thorne's magnetic star quality and excellent counterbalancing from supporting players Mehcad Brooks and Scott Cohen. They help make this show more than the sum of it's parts, if not quite enough to make this a "good" show. Even so, it's not have bad as escapist entertainment.

Over the years it's been a pleasure to see on many cable series and the FX's "Rescue Me" the work of Callie Thorne, I've saw her in many sexy scenes. Yet her work and clever look always produce blunt and brash outspoken performances she's a fine actress. So I was so glad when the USA Network decided to give her a series of her own, and "Necessary Roughness" fits her perfect, as Callie shows she has some range as an actress.Set in Long Island, New York Thorne is Dr. Dani Santino who as an upscale and elegant attractive psychotherapist mother of two finds herself in the dumps when she discovers her husband has cheated on her. Yet for every negative a positive will come, it seemed like a dream for Dani when she gets the call for pro football's New York Hawks(a fictional one)to be a therapist and shrink for the team. And her most famous client is troubled star wide receiver Terrence King(Mehcad Brooks)and this cat gives Dani plenty of headaches and mental pain as talent is no break from being a head case! Aside from that dealing with the growing pains of her teenage kids is enough as she has to monitor many of their moves.Still the doc has a little side pleasure in the form of some one night stands with team trainer the hunky Matthew(Marc Blucas). As anyone would agree and see why that Matthew has a thing for Dani she's one hot sexy doc! And her professional work is well respected as it leads her to counsel and analyze many other type of clients from entertainers, celebrities, and other sports and media figures and even politicians as everyone needs a shrink! Overall this is one good series that proves with a little advice and direction fear and many other problems can be faced and overcome in a permanent manner. And Callie Thorne is a delight she's a tough as nails and very sexy cougar who cares about people problems in this series. So do yourself a favor and take the field and get ready for the game of life that's just "Necessary Roughness".