The insightful therapist whose own personal life is a mess is a well-worn cliché, and Apple TV+ dramedy Shrinking doesn't do anything particularly new or interesting with it. Creators Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Segel introduce a group of generally likable characters and then mostly just have them stand around and chat with each other. It's pleasant at times, but it has minimal narrative momentum or meaningful conflict, and within a handful of episodes it barely retains its central premise.

Segel stars as Jimmy Laird, a psychologist who's grieving the recent death of his wife in a car accident. As Shrinking's first episode begins, he's still deep in a self-destructive cycle, using cocaine and hiring sex workers for pool parties. Beyond the opening scene, though, that behavior pretty much disappears, and his grief takes on a more audience-friendly form. After being disengaged from his work for an extended period, Jimmy impulsively stops holding himself back with his patients, intervening more directly in their personal lives.

Christa Miller and Jessica Williams in Shrinking

At first, Shrinking focuses on Jimmy's new position as a "psychological vigilante," demanding that one patient leave her jerk of a husband and following another patient on a date to critique his approach. Jimmy devotes his primary attention to new patient Sean (Luke Tennie), a military veteran with PTSD who's been ordered into therapy after arrests for assault. Jimmy becomes unprofessionally involved in Sean's life, eventually inviting Sean to live in his guest house after Sean's parents kick him out.

It doesn't take long before Sean is fully integrated into Jimmy's social group, which includes his co-workers Gaby (Jessica Williams) and Paul (Harrison Ford), his neighbor Liz (Christa Miller), his best friend Brian (Michael Urie), and his teenage daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell). Some of these characters ostensibly dislike each other at the outset, but their animosity fades quickly, so they can hang out together in seemingly interchangeable configurations.

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Luke Tennie and Jason Segel in Shrinking

Lawrence and Goldstein are coming off the success of their work on fellow Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, but the Lawrence show that Shrinking most closely resembles is Cougar Town. That ABC/TBS sitcom similarly started out with a clear premise that it quickly abandoned in favor of characters hanging out and not doing much of anything else. In its later episodes, Shrinking sporadically returns to Jimmy meddling in the lives of his other patients, but it usually comes off as an afterthought. Even Sean spends far more time sitting around Jimmy's house than in actual therapy.

Like Ted Lasso, Shrinking is largely about nice people being nice to each other, but even when everyone on Ted Lasso is in harmony, there's always an external conflict in the form of the team's soccer games. There's nothing like that in Shrinking, so the episodes often feel shapeless, without dramatic stakes that last longer than a scene or two once the characters forgive each other. Like Cougar Town, Shrinking establishes cutesy shorthand for characters that elides their different personalities and turns them into a muddled hive mind.

Miller plays a character very similar to her role on Cougar Town, as the snarky but supportive friend who's less vicious than she makes herself out to be. Shrinking even briefly resurrects a recurring Cougar Town bit in which Miller's character approves new euphemisms. Shrinking has more serious moments and more swearing, but otherwise, it's not far off from a fairly bland network sitcom.

Harrison Ford and Lukita Maxwell in Shrinking

Segel has plenty of network sitcom experience from his years on How I Met Your Mother, and he's good at playing a mix of sensitive and goofy. The last show he created, AMC's metaphysical drama Dispatches From Elsewhere, was much more grandiose and self-important, and it's refreshing to see him using his comedic abilities again. Ford has been prominently promoted as Shrinking's main co-star, but he's an equal member of the supporting cast, fitting surprisingly well in the Lawrence sitcom universe. It's not much of a stretch for Ford to play a lovable grump, but he hits the proper comedic beats and brings some gravitas to Paul's emotional moments dealing with Parkinson's disease.

Williams, who's excelled in the indie rom-coms People Places Things and The Incredible Jessica James, is charming as fellow therapist Gaby, although the requisite romantic tension between her and Jimmy is a bit tiresome. That goes double for the uncomfortable subplot about a possible hook-up between Sean and Alice, which mirrors an equally uncomfortable Cougar Town subplot.

Shrinking handles some of its awkward moments with more grace than a broad sitcom would, but it's still pretty timid and uninspired for a show from the creative team behind a sensation like Ted Lasso. Any viewers expecting a similar jolt of funny, feel-good creative energy are likely to be disappointed.

The first two episodes of Shrinking premiere Friday, Jan. 27 on Apple TV+, with subsequent episodes debuting each Friday.