Culture Crash: Why “Shrinking” Feels Like The TV We Want Right Now

During the so-called golden age of television, during the 2000s and 2010s, many of the best shows were the prestige dramas. Gritty, gripping stories that doubled as deep character studies like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, and the first season of True Detective proved that TV could hang with movies when it came to depicting the shocking violence and corrupt underbelly of society.

In the last few years, though, it seems people have wanted a reprieve from the harsh reality that those types of shows could depict. Instead of dramatic anti-heroes, modern TV audiences seem to have a growing appetite for everyday people who are trying their best. Shows like The Pitt, about doctors and nurses attempting to save lives, or The Bear, about normal people operating a restaurant and trying to keep it all together.

For my money, no show is pulling this off at a higher level right now than Shrinking, Apple TV’s dramady about a trio of therapists and their inner circle all trying to lead relatively normal lives overcoming grief, romantic disappointment, and everyday mundanity. In its third season, the show – which stars Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, and Harrison Ford – has fully gotten its rhythm down in depicting how a group of modern Americans can show up for each other and have fulfilling personal relationships. It’s aiming for something more aspirational and relatable than both the comedies and dramas of past decades, choosing to focus on the difficulties of life and what it means to be a fully grown adult, who chooses to be a part of a community.

With some hilarious bits, plenty of emotional tear-jerker moments, and a truly phenomenal late-career turn from Harrison Ford, Shrinking often strikes me as a uniquely 2020s-era  type of show that aims to use the Apple TV corporate sheen to create an antidote to the cynicism of our modern world.

Shrinking is now streaming on Apple TV. 

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