Bill Lawrence has arguably been one of the best things to ever happen to Apple TV+.
The veteran TV creator and screenwriter has had a hand in three hit shows for the iPhone maker’s streaming service, two of which (Shrinking and Bad Monkey) are ranked as the #1 and #2 shows, respectively, on Apple TV+ at the moment. Apple has also just ordered a third season of Shrinking, the comedy about therapy starring Jason Segel that debuted its sophomore season this week.
The Shrinking cast announced Apple’s Season 3 renewal this morning at New York Comic Con, where co-creators Segel and Brett Goldstein along with cast members Christa Miller (Liz), Jessica Williams (Gaby), Luke Tennie (Sean), Michael Urie (Brian), Lukita Maxwell (Alice), and Ted McGinley (Derek), took the Main Stage for a special discussion about the new season.
“I’m so lucky to work on Shrinking with actors, writers and a crew so talented that they all elevate the material,” Lawrence said about the Season 3 news. “I’m even luckier that they are people I’d want to spend time with anyway. Huge thanks to Apple TV+ and Warner Bros. for the amazing partnership and support. So grateful we get to keep making this show. Onward!”
For the unaware, Shrinking follows Jimmy, a grieving therapist played by Segel, who starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, his unconventional approach leads to huge, tumultuous changes in people’s lives.
I’ll say this about the new season of the show: Having watched all of Season 2 early via screeners that Apple TV+ made available to the press, I tend to agree with Variety’s assessment — that Shrinking has turned the show’s dynamic into basically a kind of free-flowing hangout among “oversharing friends.” We don’t see a whole lot of work going on, in other words; I don’t think Segel’s character Jimmy takes on a single new patient across the entire season, while he enjoys essentially hanging out with the few that he has (along with his friends and neighbors).
The question, of course, is whether you like these characters enough for that to be a problem. I, for one, could hang out with Jessica Williams’ Gaby all day and then some. Liz’s husband Derek is a zany delight, and Harrison Ford’s Paul is cranky yet winsome. If you ask me, it very much deserves a new season. Basically, this is the Apple TV+ show that’ll fill the Ted Lasso-sized hole in your heart, while we wait to see if those new season rumors for the latter amount to anything.
