Shrinking premiere: We could use more Harrison Ford, less Jason Segel
In episodes 1 and 2, the Apple TV Plus series struggles to balance its comedic and dramatic beats
TV Reviews Harrison Ford
Sigh. Where to begin with Shrinking?
Maybe with its cloyingly twee title. Because get it? Shrink-ing! Because he’s a shrink doing what shrinks do. But it’s possibly also “shrinking,” as in taking up less space, since maybe that’s what the characters of this new Apple TV+ series are going to learn to do over the course of the season?
I’ll admit that I had high hopes for this show. Like that streamer’s most lauded comedy series (Ted Lasso), Shrinking has a pedigree that cannot be beat. And that’s because it’s the same one that brought us that soccer comedy series in the first place (Emmy winners Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein share co-creator credits with Shrinking star Jason Segel). Here, after all, is a well-meaning situational dramedy centered on yet another middle-aged guy who is eager to better other people’s lives—and sure, he may not opt to go about it in any traditional way.
GRADE FOR SEASON 1, EPISODE 2: C
Okay. So, the premise: As the opening scene of Shrinking’s pilot shows us, Jimmy (Segel) is struggling. He’s all too happy to waste his nights away drunk at his pool with girls whose names he can’t remember. His life’s been in shambles since he lost his wife. His relationship with his daughter couldn’t be worse. And while his neighbor Liz (Cougar Town’s Christa Miller) is fine picking up the slack, it’s clear something has to change. Especially since someone in such circumstances couldn’t possibly have the grounding presence needed to do his job right. Folks come to him (and to his colleagues) to seek guidance. And it does not bode well when he’s not really able to be himself. He can’t even bring himself to talk to his best friend.
It’s in this context that Jimmy decides that, yes, “compassion fatigue” is a thing, sure, but, what if—and hear him out here—what if he just decides to tell his patients what they should do? I mean, it’s obvious. Heidi Garner’s Grace is clearly blind to the emotionally abusive relationship she’s in. Wouldn’t she be better off being told by her exasperated therapist that she should dump her partner and move elsewhere (or else risk losing Jimmy as her therapist)? Shrinking, to its credit, doesn’t blindly agree with Jimmy’s unorthodox method. Or, does it? I mean, the first two episodes suggest that Jimmy’s new approach (unethical as it may well, as his colleague Gabby tells him) may not be all too bad—but also maybe not all that good either.
This is most obvious in the way his advice to Grace backfires and collides with his approach to Sean (Luke Tennie), his latest patient, a veteran struggling with anger issues as she reenters society with emotional scars from his time served. The climax of those B-plots crashing into one another (where Jimmy gets beat up, which prompts newly boxer Sean to come to his rescue, landing the latter in jail and the former in hot water) is the clearest moment where Shrinking seems to want its cake and eat it, too. That is, this is a show that doesn’t want to pretend that Jimmy forgoing his professional training and ethics will leave him off the hook.
But as episode two shows us, he’s still very much committed to bending the rules and doing therapy a little bit differently—all while, obviously, begrudgingly working on himself and the relationships around him that have been clearly hurting since he lost his wife. That subplot at least brings in one of the joys of Shrinking. Namely, Michael Urie, who plays Jimmy’s lawyer BFF whose motto “Everything goes my way!” sounds almost too much like a self-aware wink for the way in which Jimmy’s “shrinking” is gonna go.
Which is, perhaps, my biggest gripe with this otherwise charming and very funny series. I mean, when you put Harrison Ford in full curmudgeon mode next to Jason Segel and Jessica Williams, there’s just not denying that you’ve got a competently funny show on your hands. But what is it saying? I mean, other than the platitudes it seems to spout: that all of us (even therapists!) are struggling? That we’re all doing our best? That we all need to understand that we can only get incrementally better with some quiet, introspective work?
Well, that final one may not be as evident, given how much Jimmy seems to value tangible, immediate results from his patients. But I have to believe that is what’s underneath the desire to tell Jimmy’s story and to center mental health front and center in a sitcom like this one. And yet, I can’t shake off the way what was so beautifully crafted in Ted Lasso (seriously, that season-two foray into the pitfalls and perils of therapy was surprisingly nuanced) is here so flattened into caricature. Again, I know “people dutifully doing their job well” is boring at best in American television (we love us our mavericks, do we not?) but I don’t know how to feel about such a topic being handled so, if not flippantly, then maybe without the care it deserves.
Does that make me a humorless shrew who can’t take a joke? Quite possibly. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have high hopes for what Shrinking can be—even if I almost keep wishing it were focused on any number of characters other than Jimmy. Like, what would a show like this look like if it focused on Williams’ banter-ey Gabby, or on Ford’s no-nonsense Paul? Heck, even on Urie’s Brian? Which is not to say Segel hasn’t got that brooding melancholy that flutters into zany frenetic energy needed to get us to root for Jimmy. It’s just that, well, we may have seen variations on that trope so many times before they’ve come to blunt their efficacy.
As we look toward the next few episodes, I’ll be curious to see whether Shrinking’s approach to its central narrative tension (meddling in other people’s lives is good! emotional work requires distance and space!) can coexist in a way that allows the show’s comedic and dramatic beats to live in harmony.
Stray observations
- For all my kvetching, I will admit there are some nuggets of wisdom shared throughout this two-episode premiere. My favorites include mantras like “Not everyone here is a fucking idiot” and “What you resist persists.”
- Who is behind this amazing PR campaign for pickleball (“the fastest growing sport in America”) and how can we stop it?
- Michael Urie remains a comedic treasure. His delivery of “I am Atticus Finch! I am Julianna Marguiles! I am Elle Woods!” had me in stitches.
- Speaking of comedic treasures, my great hope for Shrinking is that it reminds everyone what a powerhouse Jessica “Don’t clap at me, I’m too grown for that” Williams can be—that is, if the show gets to give her more to play than trusty sounding board (though that scene with Christa Miller, yet another comedy pro, was a highlight of episode two, so there is hope).
- Anyone else now craving sandwiches and tacos after episode two? Just me? Okay.
- Arguably this is a show about grief (or so it bills itself) so I’m curious how its current sitcom-y trappings will meld when it tries to go more serious. (Again, we’re basically looking to see whether Shrinking can weasel itself out of the darker beats its constructed for itself in between “hiding in the bushes” and “water-cooler pitter patter” sequences that feel more Scrubs than Ted Lasso right now).
- It’ll take me some time before I let go of the fact that Lawrence, Goldstein, and crew all but recycled a great Burn After Reading bit (memmoah/memoir) and made me think “Harrison Ford is no John Malkovich,” which is just an unfair comparison for all involved.
60 Comments
Less Jason Segel is always the answer.
There is very little relationship between the title and the content of the review
I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but I’ll agree with half your headline. I don’t think it necessarily needs less Segel, but it absolutely needs more Harrison Ford. I’m a sucker for when he does comedy, even when it’s filtered through his grumpy old man bit, but his role (in the first episode at least) seems almost like a glorified cameo. More of him with Jessica Williams, please. They were just adorable together.
Less Jason Segel? You could chop him off at the knees. He’d still probably be like 5’11”.
*pushes up glasses* Of course they meant fewer Jason Segels.
Jasons Segel?
Steven SeagalJonathan Livingston Seagull Seal Team Six … personal friends of mine.
came here to see if anyone else hated this show as much as I did (apparently not). I found the plot insipid and Jimmy is nothing more than an animated feel-good-movie-charming-bad-guy trope. We are supposed to like him and root for him immediately, even as he is introduced to us as drug addled alcoholic swimming with hookers. Rascal that he is, Jimmy is told to settle down! by his neighbor who also happens to be raising his daughter. The next morning off he goes to a seemingly prestigious psychological office on his daughter’s bike and pink helmet. Whoops, he’s the therapist! Midway through the episode, he is has created a new breakthrough therapy method that “breaks all the rules!” and he and his new patient, a troubled young man with PTSD, go to a a fighting studio and he’s cured! Then they bond and help each other!By the time I reached the point where he rushes against time and all odds (along with his PTSD patient during their second therapy session ) to see his daughter’s soccer game, I decided I had enough and turned the show off. It is almost like Tim Apple said, “Let’s do another show like Ted Lasso that has goofy characters that learn and grow,” and Shrinking was born.Came for Harrison Ford, and he did not disappoint, but not enough of a draw for me.
Jasoni SegelJasonen Segel
Stannis would be proud.
he can put me on my knees any day!
Hahaha. Jason Segel is still my number one pick for MCUs The Thing. He’s so big yet has such kind eyes.
And yet somehow twice as bad of an actor as he currently is. Which is really bad..
Maybe I’m being an asshole, but shouldn’t reviews be based on what a show does, not what you wish it did? I mean, the author of this review basically spent three consecutive paragraphs grappling internally about whether they understand the concept of the show or not. Do editors still exist here on this site?
i mean, i’ll take any review that isn’t a straight recap.
“Ok so there’s this good guy, and then he meets this other guy, and then um he has to find out whats happening and so then he goes to space and then he’s like “oh no!” and then and then”-AV Club’s new review style or hyper six-year-old trying to tell you a story?
sometimes there’s a few sentences at the end that offer an impression of an impression.
“And then um, in conclusion, I had a really good summer and learned a lot about space. The end”
Oh bless you for doing the lords work of actually reading this article to determine it’s spoiler free. I thank you.
I mostly go to io9 for actualy reviews now. There just isn’t quite a place like old AV Club anymore
Recently I was going threw my old bookmarks on my chrome and I found a few old A.V. Club reviews from like 15 years ago. Oh. My. God. It’s become a recurring joke how much this site has changed but back then you could bet your bottom dollar there’d be a hundred comments on every article. I re-read it, it was a pleasure to read.
Sam Barsanti was the beginning of the end for me. The dude just hates everything he’s writing about.
back then you could bet your bottom dollar there’d be a hundred comments on every article. I’ve gotta ask though, how many of them were you replying to yourself?
that’s criticism 101. Apparently no one here takes that course anymore.
Sisley from Siskel and Elbert used to do that all the time, bash a movie and talk about how HE would have done it, which always seemed odd, especially since Elbert was the one who had written a movie before.
I don’t think you’re “being an asshole”, but I’m not seeing what you’re seeing.
“shouldn’t reviews be based on what a show does, not what you wish it did”Shows set the expectations that we measure them against.
Indeed, you are.
I feel like this review is asking for the expectations of an entire season to be met in 2 episodes. “But what is it saying? I mean, other than the platitudes it seems to spout: that all of us (even therapists!) are struggling? That we’re all doing our best? That we all need to understand that we can only get incrementally better with some quiet, introspective work?”Maybe let the season finish…
The premise of this show sounds seriously retrograde. If it were a trailer for an 80s movie, id be less surprised.
I could’ve sworn I’ve seen this “therapist just tells patients what to do” premise a few times before, but I can’t remember a specific example.
Grumpy Harrison Ford makes me think of his turn in Morning Glory, which I liked. The man is a national treasure. And I can’t stop thinking that Jason Segel will find again whatever he tapped into in The End of the Tour, where he was marvelous as David Foster Wallace.
I like you have high expectations when Bill Lawrence is involved. A Scrubs-ian take on psychiatry with Ford in the grumpy old mentor role feels like it should be a winner, but Segel’s character sounds a little too “Fleishman Is in Trouble” – entering middle age doctor with a lost marriage, carousing, neglecting his kid.
I’ve been looking forward to this. Consider my expectations tempered.
“We could use more Harrison Ford, less Jason Segel”This was true even before this show was announced. Freaks & Geeks was a long time ago.
What? Jason Segels work hasn’t been irrelevant since Freaks & Geeks? I’m a Canadian Fringe performer who has worked across Canada with puppet shows and puppet that I’ve built. I literally took it upon myself to self-teach myself to build Muppets after seeing the Jason Segel Muppets Movie. So…. shut your mouth I’ve based like the passed decade of my life off my fandom of this man. You don’t know what your talking about.
He made a muppet movie 12 years ago and Forgetting Sarah Marshall 15 years ago and for that he gets a lifetime pass? Putin was Time’s Man of the Year in 2007 – is he still awesome?Segal is a snoozefest in people-skin.
Looks like we need a new version of Godwin’s Law.
Dude hung dong and then did muppets! respect!
I agree with what you are trying to say, but as Time has said over and over when people like the Ayatollah Khomeini were made “Man of the Year”, the designation doesn’t mean “wonderful guy” but rather “person of most importance to the news for good or bad”.
He was great in Winning Time. The show about the LA Lakers during the Magic/Kareem era. That was last year on HBO Max.
You… might be biased.
I literally took it upon myself to self-teach myself to build Muppets after seeing the Jason Segel Muppets Movie. So…. shut your mouth I’ve based like the passed decade of my life off my fandom of this man. I’m shaken and questioning if maybe you’re the best Kinja parody account ever.But a parody account would probably understand subtlety.
It wasn’t…terrible. And that’s something given that there has been terrible Muppet content. I guess I’m glad that it inspired you, but it seems like being inspired by Segels’ Muppets movie rather than the classic ones would be like someone inspired to draw anime after watching a Netflix pseudo-anime series rather than the classic Japanese ones.
I was inspired to get into puppetry the way most people were: by John Malkovich.
Do you just assume your opinion is universal? Like my entire group of friends in theatre school used to burst out singing “Am I a Man or am I a Muppet” at parties and stuff. Are you high? Forgetting Sarah Marshall was like…. a moment in culture.
I lump him in with the Ike Barinholtz/Josh Gad “Why the hell are these people famous” Crew.
There are a few Jason Segel moments/scenes that have struck me and stuck with me (the dramatic ones; never the funny ones), and it is for those memories that I always want to love whatever next project of his that I’ve sat down to enjoy.More often than not, though, he has disappointed, and these two episodes have done nothing to change that.But I’ll press on through to the end and see what happens. /shrugs
(FWIW: the last things of his I enjoyed were “Dispatches From Elsewhere” and “Jeff, Who Lives At Home”.)
Oh cool another recap for something I wanna watch. I’ll be sure to bookmark this to read after I view it, so as to avoid spoilers.
Pls add paragraph at top at least mentioning lead character’s job for context, and what purpose or occupation the Harrison Ford character serves in relation to said lead character. Thx, ed
I was wondering the exact same thing.
I also had to go back a few paragraphs midway to piece together what Jessica Williams’s role is (she is his colleague Gabby…?)
There’s a reference to Home Alone in the first episode which is so unlikely it made me annoyed.
This sounds a little bit like someone took the basic concept of the short film Our Time is Up and expanded it to a series.(Great short, btw. Stars Kevin Pollack, Jorge Garcia, Jerry Minor…)
Chista Miller plays next door neighbor to a zany 40-something who is unexpectedly parenting a teen. And they have a pool. What show am I describing?(Long live Christa Miller!)
Eh, i enjoyed it, but i wasn’t expecting a realistic portrayal of therapy. Will definitely tune in for ep 3.
Christa Miller is a brilliant comedian but I wish she would leave her goddamn face alone. She looks like Nicholson’s Joker.
It’s funny how there’s one commenter bitching that the review is all about whether the show met expectations it set rather than the recap and another commenter bitching that the review is all about the recap rather than whether the show met the expectations it set.
is the clearest moment where Shrinking seems to want its cake and eat it, too. That is, this is a show that doesn’t want to pretend that Jimmy forgoing his professional training and ethics will leave him off the hook.Isn’t this the kind of thing that makes stories interesting? What even is this line of thinking?
BREAKING: Lisa Loring, original Wednesday Addams actress, dead at 64
Speaking of Harrison Ford…
Return of the Jedi is turning 40 years old this year.I was 10 years old in the theater in Ridgefield New Jersey with my dad, brother and sister and I remember the build up to this moment. I had goosebumps and a chill don my spine. After the first two Star Wars it had come to this. The final space battle to end all battles. I remember being emotional. After the movie there were two people in cosplay dressed as Darth Vader and Obi-Wan in front of the theater having a mock lightsaber battle. It was the first time I saw cosplay, but it wasn’t called that back them. A small crowd gathered to watch them fight, including my family. I’ll never forget this day.
Jason Segel =low rent copy of Judge Reinhold