“Shrinking,” starring Harrison Ford and Jason Segel, follows a grieving therapist (Segel) who starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives — including his own. The series premiered globally with the first two episodes on Friday, January 27th, on Apple TV+. It will be followed by one new episode weekly, every Friday.
Going to veer wildly out of my lane here to spotlight a series that I wouldn’t imagine would be on my radar, but it turns out it’s one of the best shows of the year, and a surefire Emmy contender in at least one category. That show is Shrinking, an Apple Plus comedy starring Jason Segel and Harrison Ford.
My wife and I were watching this show weekly, and even on a streaming service I would consider having a higher batting average than most others, this might be my favorite thing I’ve ever watched on Apple Plus. And at least early in 2023 here, this might be one of the best shows of the year.
If I had to pinpoint a single reason that Shrinking works so well, it’s that the casting is probably the best I’ve seen for a series I can remember in an extremely long time. Every role is filled by a talented actor working with excellent scripts and delivering hilarious, heartfelt performances. Not just Segel and Ford, but all the roles, the daughter (Lukita Maxwel), the other psychiatrist (Jessica Williams), the veteran patient (Luke Tennie), the best friend (Michael Urie), the neighbor (Christa Miller). Usually when we talk about casting, it’s that X actor fills Y existing role well in some superhero/book adaptation/remake. But all of these are original parts, and when you realize this series is from Segel, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence and Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein, it all starts to make sense as to why this is so good.
MacDailyNews Take: Tassi is right. Like Ted Lasso and Severance before it, Shrinking started out good and then quickly became great. The Morning Show took its time to get there, but it should also now be included in the upper echelons of Apple TV+ series, too.
The first season (10 episodes) of Shrinking is available now on Apple TV+ and offers up quite the… uh… cliffhanger.
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overall I liked it, but the last episode was a little too saccharine, a little too forced “happy happy”
The first 9 episodes were brilliant, but it didn’t stick the landing. In episode 10 were 3 head-smackingly poor scenes.
I wish there were more episodes in a season for hit sitcoms on streaming services like traditional TV channels. Watching 10 episodes and having to wait almost another year feels like forever, and alot of times I seem to just loose interest.