THE SHRINK NEXT DOOR (2021)
Limited Series
Aired On: Apple TV+
Release Date: 11/12/21
Biography. Comedy. Drama.
"The story of Marty and the therapist who turned his life around - then took it over. When he meets Dr. Ike, Marty just wants to get better at boundaries. Over 30 years, he'll learn all about them - and what happens when they get crossed."
OUR REVIEW:
Let’s start off with a major positive for Apple TV+’s original series, The Shrink Next Door - the acting is great. Will Ferrell is better here than he’s been known to be in the past several years and Paul Rudd is giving his all without going too overboard with his performance. It's refreshing to see Rudd take on a slimy role such as this, his portrayal is so convincing that it makes the naturally likable Rudd someone you really start to hate. Kathryn Hahn is great as always with the limited time she has on screen. Aside from the performances, Joshua Moshier’s score and Michael Showalter’s direction are well done; however they aren’t anything that stand out.
The problem with The Shrink Next Door is mainly that even at a brisk 8 episodes you start to feel it thin out and overstay its welcome by the time you get to episode six. It felt like if this series had been paced out and planned to be just 6 episodes it really would have benefited. It's an extremely intriguing and sad story but there's a lot of moments throughout the series where you just feel like, “okay this needs to pick up a bit I need to see where this is going or how the endgame starts”, but you don't really get that until the seventh episode. You just get so many of the moments of facetiousness with Ike (Rudd), which they had to showcase but wound up spending a little too much time showing. You get it after a certain point, no need to keep going into it. Overall I did really enjoy the show despite its flaws. The acting is great, the story is intriguing and everything else is solid enough.