EntertainmentStreamingThe best comedy on Apple TV+ will make you cryShrinking isn’t perfect, but it packs an emotional punch in between some quality comedyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
EntertainmentStreamingThe best comedy on Apple TV+ will make you cryShrinking isn’t perfect, but it packs an emotional punch in between some quality comedyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Shrinking isn’t perfect, but it packs an emotional punch in between some quality comedy
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Apple)
(Image credit: Apple)
If you’re looking for one of thebest streamingcomedies to watch right now, it’s called Shrinking and it’s onApple TV+. It’s so good that Harrison Ford, who plays one of the main characters, isn’t even the best thing in it.
Shrinking currently has an 82% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and having watched 7 of its 10 episodes I feel that’s perhaps a bit on the low side. Because while Shrinking is genuinely funny, it also has an emotional punch that’s had me in floods of tears on several occasions. The first episode isn’t great, but the show hits its stride in episode 2 and is consistently hilarious and often quite emotional throughout.
Shrinking isn’t After Life, and thank goodness for that
Yeah, I thought it sounded like After Life too, and I nearly didn’t watch it because I can’t stand that show. But I’m glad I did, because it’s different from After Life in one crucial way: it’s good.
Shrinking is essentially Ted Lasso in therapy, and it comes from many of the people behind that Apple TV+ smash hit. It’s darker than Ted, though, with key characters variously wrestling with grief, post-traumatic stress and Parkinson’s disease in among more conventional comic tropes. Jimmy in particular is an interesting character: just when he’s at his most likable he’ll do something that’ll have you hating him.
It doesn’t always work – some of the key plot moments stretch credulity a bit too much – but Shrinking largely gets away with it thanks to the sheer quality of the performances here. Harrison Ford in particular is a grumpy delight, but for me the show belongs to Jessica Williams. Williams is a firework in human form who lights up the screen every time she appears and whose character is much more interesting and important than the first episode might suggest.
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I’ve been reading a lot of reviews of the show, and I think it’s clear that Shrinking is the kind of thing that you’ll either really love or just not get into at all – in much the same way I simply don’t get the appeal of After Life, plenty of reviewers just didn’t feel about Shrinking the way I do. But there’s lots here to like, and I like it a lot.
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