Jason Segel, left, Lukita Maxwell, centre, and Luke Tennie star in Season 3 of Apple TV comedy Shrinking.Supplied
In its classic form, comedy tends to end in a wedding.
Shrinking, the Emmy-nominated therapy-themed comedy now back on Apple TV, has inverted that convention in its third season, however, by starting with one.
“We were definitely conscious of that,” says Bill Lawrence, the American TV sitcom veteran who created the show with actors Jason Segel, who stars as grieving therapist Jimmy, and Brett Goldstein, who plays Louis, the man who killed Jimmy’s wife in a drunk-driving accident.
In the season opener, Jimmy’s mentor Paul (Harrison Ford), whose Parkinson’s disease symptoms continue to progress, and Julie, his girlfriend, decide to get married. By the end of the hour-long episode, they’re wed.
In the show, Segel, right, is grieving therapist Jimmy, and Brett Goldstein, left, plays Louis, the man who killed Jimmy’s wife in a drunk-driving accident.Supplied
“With younger writers I always preach that TV isn’t necessarily about what’s the newest idea; it’s about execution,” says Lawrence. “You shouldn’t be afraid of tropes, but you have to put your own spin on.”
Lawrence first put his own spin on the network sitcom form with Spin City, his influential 1990s ABC show set in the New York City mayor’s office, starring Michael J. Fox.
Next came the hospital comedy Scrubs, a medical sitcom that ran for nine seasons until 2010. It is getting revived later this month on ABC (and CTV in Canada) with original stars Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke back in their scrubs.
But Lawrence is mostly known at the moment for Shrinking and the other Apple TV streaming show he co-created: Ted Lasso, the warm-hearted transatlantic soccer comedy that got many viewers through the pandemic.
Harrison Ford, right, plays Jimmy’s mentor Paul, whose Parkinson’s disease symptoms continue to progress.Robert Voets/Supplied
Both shows are known for the kind essence exuded by their generally understanding and empathetic characters.
Shrinking, in particular, never extends a conflict for the sake of raising the stakes – the same way this season doesn’t will-they-won’t-they Paul and Julie all the way to the altar just to follow romantic-comedy formula.
“It sucks that we’re such good people,” says Brian, Jimmy’s best friend (Michael Urie), in one episode.
Perhaps the most representative plot line in this regard is how Jimmy has not only forgiven Louis for causing the death of his wife, but befriended him and is trying to help get his life back on track as Season 3 starts.
“What we realize at the end of Season 2 is that these guys are actually living in parallel purgatories; the same incident paralyzed both of them and stopped their growth,” says Segel, of the unusual arc. “But we also explore the idea of moving forward, that at some point, they’re gonna have to separate in order for either of them to let this truly go.”
Not everyone is on board with the emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in Lawrence’s comedies, however; Vulture dubbed his style “harmony-at-all-costs” and the Jimmy-Louis rapprochement “treacly artifice.”
But Segel says he doesn’t find their friendship implausible. “I am of a school of thought and experience that clearing out your resentments, and getting your side of the street clean, and making good with the past is the only way to move forward,” he says.
Lawrence says many of Shrinking’s more picked-over plot lines – such as when Jimmy had a client with PTSD train in mixed martial arts – have real-life inspirations.
That’s the case, too, with Jimmy and Louis. Lawrence says that part of the narrative was inspired by the true experience of an individual connected to the show who lost someone to drinking and driving.
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Lawrence says it would be “insane” if all victims and perpetrators became friends, however. “Do I want to live in a world that I believe that could happen, that we could forgive anybody? Yeah.”
One element of Shrinking that has been universally praised has been Star Wars star Ford’s sly performance as the curmudgeonly Paul – and the show’s underlying depiction of what it’s like to live with Parkinson’s disease.
Michael J. Fox, whose Parkinson’s diagnosis led him to leave the lead role of Spin City in 2000, appears in this season of Shrinking in a small role, his first on TV since 2020.
Lawrence had thought his old collaborator was fully retired from acting until the two ran into each other at a barbecue. “In a very comedic way, Mike said: ‘You’re doing a show about dealing with Parkinson’s and you haven’t had me on it?’” he recalls.
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Lawrence was more than pleased to write a part for him, and to find Fox’s comic timing as intact as when he played Marty McFly in the Back to the Future movies.
“To see him and Harrison Ford on set together – that was like every major movie and TV show in my chihdood,” he says.
For Segel, Fox’s desire to be a part of Shrinking was a sign they were portraying Parkinson’s right. “It did feel like an affirmation that he wanted to come appear on it,” he says. “We all felt very proud.”
As for this show’s kind style of comedy, Lawrence doesn’t think it’s the only way to go. “My favourite comedy is Veep, and everybody on that show is just finding new ways to be horrible to each other,” he says. “It’s just not something that I could necessarily write.”