korinez

To me, watching a good TV series is like having a chance to live in an alternate reality. I have to say that out of all realities of my favorite comedy shows - Scrubs, Arresting Development, maybe some other ones - the universe of this one feels the most I would actually want to visit. Everything about this show is so amazingly life-like, normal and crazy at the same time. The moms - the one who's always late and in a hurry at the same time, the chill mildly alcoholic one (you want to be friends with her), the queen bee in control of all the events one. The school problems - I'm from another country but so many things seem familiar here. The personal lives of actual adults - boring, tedious, funny, full of surprises.

This show is like Chekhov to me, or, in English, like Tennessee Williams meets Mark Twain. The characters are always natural, never weirdly friendly, or polite or speaking to each other as if they're each other's shrinks, not friends. Very good television. I love it so much that I even wish they don't make a fourth season if it has to be anything worse than the first three.

Jason Segel - love, love, love. He delivers really well, I sypmathize with this character a lot and his unorthodox approach with his patients is something I can personally relate to because I also like to take initiative and try new ways out of difficult situations. It's nice to watch a show about a character who is passionate about something and who cares.

Harrison Ford and the black therapist girl - both also very good. Other actors, to me, are not that impressive. But that's OK because this is really almost a 60/30% Segel-Ford show, which I'm cool with.

However, after a few episodes it started to feel like the show kind of forgets its first premise and the storyline loses pace and I found myself watching only because I wanted to see more of Segel's character's unorthodox work which I don't get to see a lot. I understand this show is not supposed to be a 'therapist circus' but I also did not expect it to turn full-on family drama. I wanted it to be like several patients parallel stories, or new patient every few episodes - which is there but the pace is just not as good.

What I'm trying to say is, after episode 2, it starts to get boring. The family issues raised in the beginning do not develop much, not a lot happens with the patients as well. Segel's acting still has me watching it though.

I got the feeling from this like I get very often with shows nowadays - like it's an unfinished room. As if someone started to furnish it but left and now there's a table, a couple of chairs but the room just feel too empty. To me, the idea is fulfilled by, like, 60% of what it could have been so I give this a 6. But it's an "interested" 6 because the Segel's character is just so fun to watch. Like, if it were a movie, it would be a B-movie to me which I would have still rewatched every couple of years.