Shrinking

Often, confronting your own family’s quirks around the holidays can be exasperating. What’s so great about Shrinking, the Apple+ series which just reached the end of its second season, is that it knows how complicated and exasperating so many of us can be, but examines life’s challenges in a way that just makes you love and laugh at humanity, which you may not be liable to do when the inescapably flawed person you’re dealing with is not a character on TV but your real-life uncle who’s been making the same obnoxious jokes since you were 5 years old. Jason Segel is great as Jimmy, a dad and therapist who’s been having a hard time of it lately, but the show’s real treasure is Harrison Ford as Paul, Jimmy’s gruff but fundamentally compassionate colleague who offers hard-earned wisdom and guidance but also needs some help himself sometimes. After decades of seeing Ford make bristly talk-show appearances that showed him to be a far cry from the roguish heroes he’s so often portrayed, it seems like the role, at long last, he was born to play. — Carolyn Petit

Where to watch: Apple TV+