Narrow review: Harrison Ford looks grumpy in Apple TV’s sparkling comedy

It’s still a bit difficult when you watch Harrison Ford in a TV series. Some of the older movie stars, including Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, have been making their way into the worlds of film and television for a few years now.

however, one of them will be the title, at 80, the most anticipated blockbuster of the summer, Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny.

Ford’s last television role before he Star Wars her breakthrough in 1977 was playing a teacher in Own, a largely forgotten drama about demonic possession at an all-girls school.

Ignoring the documentary narration of his two passions, aviation and the environment, Ford’s television appearances over the next 45 years were numbered exactly two: notoriety. Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) and was a guest on the first episode of Chronicles of Indiana Jones in his youth in 1992.

Somehow, he always seems too big, too iconic fordians ever wanted or needed to return to acting on television. But he started 2023 with a double: gold stone prequel 1923 on Paramount+ and now comedy shrink (Apple TV+).

In two series, zoom out, co-created by stars Jason Segel and Ted Lasso Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein duo, bring us the Ford that I like best: grimacing and dead. I don’t know if the role was written specifically for the actor, but it fits him like Indiana Jones’ brown felt hat.

He’s fantastic here (and clearly enjoying himself), squeezing the maximum juice out of Paul’s grumpy, non-huddling personality and cynical words.

Paul is the boss of Jimmy (Segel), a cognitive behavioral therapist who is in a downward spiral a year after the death of his wife Tia (Lilan Bowden, seen in flashback) in an accident car. Jimmy is drowning in grief and guilt; The last thing he and Tia did before she died was an argument.

His once close relationship with his teenage daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) has become strained to the point of rift. He seemed oblivious to her suffering.

In one of those rare moments when she actually talks to him – most of the time she can’t stand in the room with him – she reminds him that he’s not the only one feeling the same way. feel lost.

Jimmy has effectively transferred Alice’s parenting responsibilities to next door neighbor Liz (Christa Miller). He’s also spent the past year ignoring his best friend Brian (Michael Urie), a lawyer.

His personal life is a mess and it affects his work too. He is suffering from “compassion fatigue”.

Clearly, he gets sick of hearing the same patient complain about the same things for months, and in some cases years, without ever doing anything about it. One day, while tending to his drunken mother after a night of wild partying in his backyard pool with a few prostitutes, he began to tell them exactly what he thought and gave give some advice unlike a therapist.

He told a woman to leave her abusive, abusive husband, which she did. A man who complained of loneliness assumed it was his own fault, as he was so upset with everyone he came in contact with.

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Amazingly, it works. Revived by this radical new approach, Jimmy befriends a patient named Sean (Luke Tennie), a former soldier who is having trouble controlling his raging rampages. The results are far from what you might expect.

Has a superficial resemblance to Ricky Gervais Afterlife. But where every other character in that series is a sandbag, a backboard, or a comforting pillow for the protagonist’s grief-soaked solipsism, shrink very much an ensemble piece, brilliantly performed by an excellent cast.

All the characters are complete with compelling inner lives, especially Ford’s Paul, whose relationship with his stepdaughter has fallen apart. Obsessed with privacy (he calls his home a “fortress of solitude”), he is keeping this and his Parkinson’s a secret from everyone.

Well, everyone except Alice, whom he had quietly met and provided him with support and advice from his grandfather.

I’ve always been pretty agnostic about Ted Lasso. zoom out, though, is a treat.