Last year’s debut of Shrinking, a comedy starring Jason Segel as a grieving therapist, cemented my belief that co-creator Bill Lawrence is one of the most reliable TV hitmakers working today.
His second project for Apple TV+ (free trial) following the breakout success of Ted Lasso, Lawrence actually developed Shrinking with Lasso star Brett Goldstein, aka Roy Kent, which no doubt gave it a bit more of that heartwarming Lasso magic. Shrinking also probes some of the same comfortable narrative space as Lawrence’s previous hit — things like how setbacks help us grow, and the importance of empathy and kindness. The show, which returns to Apple’s streamer for its sophomore season on Oct. 16, also puts Segel kinda/sorta in the Lasso role, albeit one with much more emotional scar tissue than the former coach of AFC Richmond.
You can check out the first trailer for Season 2 of Shrinking below. In the series, Apple explains, Segel’s character “starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he makes huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives … including his own.”
By the way: It should go without saying that another of the big draws of Shrinking is its inclusion of Harrison Ford as Dr. Paul Rhoades — the no-nonsense father figure archetype who appears often in Lawrence’s work (think Dr. Cox from Scrubs). In Season 2, he both dispenses and is forced to take to heart pearls of wisdom like “If you don’t deal with your past, it’s gonna come back for you.” And, “you can’t spend your life hiding from your fear.”
Segel, meanwhile, enters Season 2 being forced to deal with the fallout of his line-crossing, unconventional relationships with his patients, one consequence of which resulted in that cliffhanger, pun very much intended, we saw at the end of Season 1.
Lawrence’s shows like Shrinking (as well as his third outing for Apple TV+, Bad Monkey) aren’t ground-breaking or even particularly revelatory. All the same, fans like me love them because they’re predictably satisfying throwbacks to the era of TV when problems got identified and neatly solved in 30- to 40-minute blocks. Here’s hoping he keeps it up at Apple for a long time to come.
