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Shrinking Season 1 Review

Shrinking is a dramedy television series created by Bill Lawrence that premiered its first season of ten episodes in 2023 on Apple TV+. It’s a very entertaining new show.

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“Boop!“

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A therapist, Jimmy Laird, dealing with severe grief after his wife’s death, begins to breach ethical barriers by telling his patients what he really thinks, resulting in massive changes to his and their lives. This show deals with a very difficult subject matter – grief after the passing of a loved one. It has its scenes that were genuinely touching and realistic in its depiction of grief, but it’s also a series that is at its heart a comedy, so it tried to balance the darker story with the light scenes from beginning to end.

The result is a mixed bag, but at least it worked more often than it didn’t. At times the tone wasn’t balanced all that well, leading to too many odd transitions from dramatic to comedic and vice versa, but many other times this mirrored real life that is also very funny and very sad at the same time. It’s a great example of the potency and versatility of dramedies as a genre and it’s a shame that we don’t get as many of these shows as we could be getting.

Of all the performers on this series, Jason Segel fared the best. He has always been a highly underrated actor and he continues to be underappreciated given the fact that everybody is talking about Ford on this show and not Segel, which is frustrating to me as he is so good and so funny here. He made Jimmy relatable and believable while infusing him with a lot of goofy personality too.

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Most of the first season’s best moments centered on his character’s handling of grief and his troubled relationship with his daughter in particular. She was so well realized and very realistic and I loved their complex dynamic. Jessica Williams is another standout on this show. Her Gabby is definitely overly cocky at times, but also genuinely funny at other times and her lines of dialogue were constantly memorable and fun.

Harrison Ford is just okay. He was by far the least memorable actor on the first season as his character was too grumpy and one-note. It’s an overrated character and he’s an overrated actor. Liz was also a bit too theatrical and annoying, but Sean was quite likable and well developed and Brian was typical, but very amusing. His friendship with Jimmy was quite heartwarming.

Shrinking has a very strong opening theme and every episode is around thirty minutes of length, perfect for this type of material. It flew by. The dialogue and humor were the highlights, though both were uneven in quality. This is a series that was very much inspired by 2000s television and I grew up watching those shows, which is why this one was super nostalgic to me. On the one hand, this old-fashioned approach led to a timeless, charming tone, but on the other hand, it had its baggage with some plot developments (Jimmy and Gabby starting to have sex) being pretty cringe-worthy and clichéd.

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