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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
40
Mixed:
15
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
Jan 21, 2026
Season 3 Review:
From witty one-liners and endearingly exaggerated personalities to physical comedy, musical numbers, and more it bears repeating that Shrinking is very funny and never maudlin. The series excels at giving viewers emotional whiplash (complimentary), but the team hasn’t just mastered the art of flicking from poignant to playful scenes on a dime.
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Oct 15, 2024
Mar 6, 2023
Season 1 Review:
With no sense of exaggeration intended, this show consistently hits it out of park, offering up characters who admit their flaws, embrace their foibles, and ultimately improve as a result. This might all sound a little bit safe for some, but have faith, because very soon Shrinking will be picking up Emmy awards – remember where you heard it first.
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Jan 26, 2023
Season 1 Review:
The writers do an amazing job of pinging back and forth between various characters and their relationships on a level rarely seen in a TV comedy. ... You never know what goes on behind the scenes, but one gets the feeling Ford is having one hell of a great time on this show. We’re sure having a hell of a great time watching it.
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Jan 23, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Judging by the first six episodes sent out to critics for review, Apple TV+’s first 2023 comedy kicks off the year with a helluva bang. The well-balanced dose of sarcastic and contagious humor (rooted in pain and heartache) is the kind of prescribed laughter we need to heal our souls after a long and hard day.
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Jan 23, 2023
Season 1 Review:
By the second episode it's gelled into an easygoing hangout comedy filled with charming characters who are, by almost any measure, way too involved in each others' lives but also seem incapable of living without one another. ... This is very much an ensemble series that gives the rest of the cast plenty of welcome room in the spotlight, with Williams and Ford effectively playing co-leads.
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Oct 15, 2024
Season 2 Review:
So far, the biggest problem with Shrinking season 2 is how much time it devotes to the Jimmy-Gabby situationship. .... Otherwise, the new episodes deliver plenty of the dynamics that worked so well in season 1: Gaby and Liz’s deepening friendship, based on truth-telling and making fun of Jimmy; Paul and Jimmy’s reason-versus-emotion antics; and Ted McGinley — as Liz’s affably Zen husband, Derek — with anybody.
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RogerEbert.comOct 15, 2024
Season 2 Review:
“Shrinking” has a habit of getting a bit too overwritten, sometimes verging on soap opera in its narrative twists and turns, but I’ve either gotten used to it or come to like these characters enough not to care anymore. The humor is sharper this year; the emotion lands harder.
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ColliderOct 15, 2024
Season 2 Review:
The jokes are the fleece that lines that trauma blanket to keep us warm, but the emotional depth is the stitches and seams that hold everything together. All of that comes together for one of the best series on TV — even though, like its characters, it’s not without its flaws.
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RogerEbert.comJan 26, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Episode by episode, it's notable how "Shrinking" isn’t rushing to get anywhere. But the characters are so strong, with the plotting always keeping their dysfunctional relationships in flux, that the series works as a hangout in which you care most about everyone’s honesty with themselves and others.
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Jan 24, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Given the richness of the casting, it’s also hard to imagine the show going beyond its first season, though there are many reasons you wish it would. ... Everyone comes off as authentically human, save perhaps for Jimmy. But he’s a work in progress, with an entourage of endearing role models showing him how to be real.
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Jan 23, 2023
Season 1 Review:
If the show does start to lose you, it won’t be for long. (Unless, perhaps, you’re a real therapist.) Breezy episodes and clever writing ripe with undeniable jokes and razor-sharp relatability help anchor Shrinking‘s effective execution. But its greatest strength lies in a charming cast with excellent chemistry and characters you can’t help but root for.
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Jan 27, 2023
Season 1 Review:
In a way, the series has a good deal in common with “Ted Lasso,” in the sense that it succeeds not because of its premise – which sounds completely ordinary and familiar – but in spite of it. “Shrinking” isn’t a big idea, but with a big heart and genuine laughs, it, too, achieves its goal.
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The PlaylistJan 23, 2023
Season 1 Review:
At its best, “Shrinking” is a show about how decisions have unexpected ripple effects. One doctor decides to go off-book and that pushes his friends and colleagues to take leaps that they may not have otherwise considered. That’s an easily watchable concept. It treads water a bit too much in the middle of the season after its set-up has kind of drifted away and the writers are content to just bounce the now-established characters off each other, but this is also the section of the first season in which it feels the ensemble starts to gel.
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