The Affair Showtime

Here’s yet another show you need to catch up on. “The Affair’’ returns on Nov. 20, which gives you more than a month to watch the first two 10-episode seasons.

OK, it may not be your cup of coffee. You need to like melodrama and soap opera, to some extent. The show is about pretty people dealing with marital discomfort and extramarital pleasure, and there is a lot of sighing, a lot of screaming, a lot of secrets, and a lot of sexing, too. Much of the story is set amid the beauty of Montauk, which adds to all the swooniness. It’s a little like “Bloodline,’’ with smarter plotting.

But the pluses are significant.

1.) Dominic West, from “The Wire’’ and “The Hour,’’ is a strong lead, as a guy from no money whose wife’s wealthy family intimidates and frustrates him. He manages to be both unbearably selfish and relatively sympathetic.

2.) The show was created by two people from the magnificent “In Treatment,’’ Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi, and it features some of the same extraordinary psychological layering.

3.) The narrative is somewhat experimental and fun to watch. The episodes are broken in half, and each half is shown from a different character’s perspective. Sometimes we see extremely different takes on the same events. In the first season, there are two points of view, those of the two lovers. In the second (and better) season, two more are added — those of the spouses of the lovers.

4.) Maura Tierney. She’s good in season one, and stupendous in season two, as the cheated-on wife. Tierney brings the kind of emotional realism that has distinguished her on “ER’’ and “Rescue Me.’’

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.