How Great Are ‘Get Back,’ ‘Ted Lasso’ & ‘Shrinking?’ So Great!

By GARY NAGER Editorial

I’m old enough to remember when TV was predominantly three networks and a few independent stations showing reruns of shows that were older than I am.

Even so, I have to admit that over the last couple of years (thanks to Covid?), Jannah and I have embraced not only the great programming that has been shown for many years on pay-cable networks like HBO and Showtime (from crime dramas like “The Sopranos” and “Ray Donovan” to comedies like “Californication” and “Weeds), we have continued to add any number of streaming TV services, including Disney+ (you know I had to watch all of my Marvel Studios movies and shows), Prime Video (“Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), HBO Max (“Hacks” and some of the DC Comics content) and Netflix (“The Queen’s Gambit,” “Ozark,” etc.).

This year, after not having watched a documentary film of any kind for many years, Jannah and I started to watch “The Beatles: Get Back,” in which renowned director Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings”) re-tells the story of the recording of the final album released by the Fab Four — “Let It Be,” which was, at first, to be called “Get Back” — as all 160 hours of those sessions in 1969 were captured on film and boiled down by Jackson to three 2.5-hour segments.

But, honestly, both of us were left wanting more. “Get Back” re-tells everything about the Beatles, from their days as teenagers in Liverpool first playing together as The Quarrymen, through their unstoppable “Beatlemania” run as the most famous band in the world, through the end of the “Get Back” sessions. We see George Harrison quit and come back, the silly personalities of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr as the group’s quiet peacemaker, and even the ever-present Yoko Ono, who was blamed for breaking up the band. Please watch “Get Back!”

Several people told me how great the Jason Sudekis vehicle “Ted Lasso” on Apple TV+ was long before we binge-watched the first two seasons of how an unsuccessful U.S. college football coach becomes the manager of a British Premier League “futbol” team. Hilarious and poignant, “Ted Lasso” has won back-to-back Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Comedy, Best Actor (Sudekis) and Best Supporting Actor (Brett Goldstein as the scene-stealing Roy Kent) and 11 wins among 40 nominations in two years. If you’re not watching the third (and supposedly final) season of “Ted Lasso,” you probably just don’t love great TV.

Another Apple TV+ show that has an outside chance of dethroning “Ted Lasso” this year is the surprisingly hysterical and sweet Jason Segel (“How I Met Your Mother”) vehicle “Shrinking,” which also stars Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams (“The Daily Show”) as psychotherapists.

Segel and Brett Goldstein are co-exceutive producers of “Shrinking,” where Segel (who plays Jimmy) has just lost his wife and decides to try a new approach to helping his patients. He and Williams (who plays Gaby, the show’s most lovable character — or is it Jimmy’s best friend Brian, played by Michael Urie?) work for the curmudgeonly Ford, and the ensemble includes TV vets Christa Miller (“Scrubs”) and Ted McGinley (“Happy Days,” “Married With Children”).

Not watching these two yet? You should be!

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