Posted in: Apple, TV | Tagged: apple tv, Bill Lawrence, Brett Weinstein, comedy, harrison ford, jason segel, Shrinking, streaming, ted lasso

Shrinking: Harrison Ford Joins Jason Segel on Apple TV+ Comedy Series

Harrison Ford will be playing a shrink, co-starring with lead Jason Segel in Shrinking, Apple TV+'s 10-episode comedy series written and executive produced by Segel and Ted Lasso's co-creator/executive producer/showrunner Bill Lawrence and star/writer/producer Brett Goldstein, who also stars in Ted Lasso as everyone's favourite foul-mouthed footballer Roy Kent. This marks Ford's first TV starring role.

The Warner Bros. Television-produced Shrinking follows a grieving therapist (Segel) who starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people's lives…including his own. In other words, just like every other TV show about a character who faces a life-changing situation and decides, "F*** it!" and decides to throw a spanner in everything and everyone to make a change. This sounds like a role tailor-made for Jason Segel.

Ford, who is joining Shrinking after lengthy negotiations, will play Dr. Phil Rhodes, a down-to-earth, sharp as a tack "blue-collar shrink," blunt but with an ever-present twinkle. Of course, he does. Phil is a pioneer in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy who has built a successful practice over the years that he shares with his two young proteges, Jimmy and Gaby. Fiercely independent (is there such a thing as a single character in movies or TV whose independence is ever less than "fierce"? Honest!), Phil has recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, which forces him out of his comfort zone as he grapples with intrusive friends, his estranged family (of course he has an estranged family – where's the drama if a therapist hero on a TV show had a loving, non-estranged family?) and his legacy. Sounds like the show will be about the hero finally deciding to tell the annoying people in his life to F*** off. That's pretty much a textbook "why now?" of a TV series.

Shrinking is produced by Warner Bros. Television and Lawrence's studio-based Doozer Productions. Segel, Lawrence, and Goldstein will executive produce alongside Doozer's Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer.

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