Ted Lasso is coming back for Season 4 on August 5 on Apple TV, and fans looking for something to fill the gap have a ready-made option in Shrinking. The therapy-centered comedy wrapped its third season last month and is being framed as the perfect weekend binge for anyone building anticipation for the return of Ted Lasso.
That pitch makes sense because Ted Lasso taught many American viewers about soccer and European sports fandom, while Shrinking gives viewers a closer look at what talk therapy is and how it works. Both shows come out of the same creative circle: Shrinking was co-created by Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein and Jason Segel, a group tied to the kind of warm, character-driven storytelling that made Ted Lasso a hit.
Shrinking first premiered on Apple TV in 2023, and in that time it has moved beyond the simple label of a companion piece. Its emotional center is different, but the tone is familiar enough to matter to viewers who want another show that balances humor with vulnerability, and the show is now expanding its original plan to include a fourth season.
That expansion is the real bridge between the two series. Ted Lasso wrapped up more than three years before the newly announced August 5 premiere date for Season 4, so the appetite around its return has had time to grow into something larger than nostalgia. Apple TV is leaning into that demand by pointing viewers toward a related show that already has momentum of its own.
There is a small catch in the neat crossover story, though. Shrinking is not Ted Lasso with a different setting, and it does not pretend to be. It shifts the center of gravity from locker rooms and matchday rituals to therapy sessions, where the stakes are personal rather than sporting, even if the same emotional honesty is doing the work underneath.
For viewers, that may be the point. If Ted Lasso was the show that made a broad American audience care about European football, Shrinking is the one that invites them to sit with the mechanics of talk therapy while they wait for August 5. The result is a useful stopgap and, by the look of its new fourth season, something more durable than a placeholder.
