‘A Man on the Inside’ Is Top-Tier Ted Danson

Most of the time, describing a show as something a whole family can enjoy, from age 8 to 88, means a whole family will be fine having it on while they look at their phones. People like looking at their phones, so this is a thriving TV genre, encompassing the likes of Dancing With the Stars, The Floor and Judge Steve Harvey. But with Thanksgiving imminent, and thus the likelihood that you’re going to be gathering near a TV with loved ones of wide-ranging ages, Netflix has made a show the whole family can actually enjoy. A Man On The Inside is a caper, a buddy comedy and a meditation on grief, and pulls off all three effortlessly.

In the show, which drops all eight episodes of its first season today, Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) is a private investigator who’s approached with a case: Evan (Marc Evan Jackson) needs her to investigate the theft of an heirloom necklace from his mother’s room at Pacific View, her San Francisco retirement home. Julie’s intrigued, but as a woman in her 30s, she doesn’t see a way in — unless she could possibly find a man of retirement age to move into Pacific View and collect information on her behalf. 

An old-fashioned newspaper classified ad seeking male applicants aged 75 to 85 who have their own phone attracts interest from Charles (Ted Danson). A retired engineering professor and relatively recent widower, Charles has so little to fill his days that his daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) challenges him to find a hobby he can be passionate about — and after meeting with Julie, Charles decides this investigation could fit the bill. With Julie posing as Emily (unbeknownst to Emily herself), Charles moves in and sets about spending his one allotted month learning what he can about the residents, and who might be responsible for taking the necklace as well as other items, valuable and not, that go missing during Charles’ stay. 

The series was adapted from the Oscar-nominated Chilean documentary feature The Mole Agent by Michael Schur after director and EP Morgan Sackett suggested both the idea and that Schur cast Danson as his lead. 

In addition to the direct source material, A Man on the Inside may remind you of a couple of other TV series, past and present. This isn’t the first time Danson has played an inexperienced PI. For three seasons, Danson co-starred on HBO’s sitcom Bored to Death as George Christopher, a magazine editor assisting his friend and protégé Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) with his new sideline as a private investigator. There are also echoes here of Schur and Danson’s last collaboration, The Good Place, in which Danson played (literal) demon Michael, a character with a highly secret plan and a facility with improvisation to protect himself from exposure. But any show that revolves around an older person taking on an unofficial role in solving crime will naturally draw comparisons to Only Murders in the Building, and A Man on the Inside has a similarly cozy vibe, promising a minimal amount of peril for its elderly protagonists.

As is to be expected in a show about senior citizens, death and grief are topics explored onscreen. In some ways, Charles lost his wife Victoria long before her death, since she had dementia and he was her primary caregiver; looking after her at their home, as he had promised her he would earlier in her illness, was a sometimes difficult undertaking that brings up painful emotions for Charles when he first visits Pacific View, particularly when he arrives at the threshold of The Neighborhood, as the residence’s memory care unit is euphemistically called. 

Once Charles does move in, the peers he meets have all lost their partners (or were never married); even the facility’s director, thirtysomething Didi (Stephanie Beatriz), is mourning her late mother. But what could have been a heavy watch is, instead, hopeful. We see how meaningful it is for the Pacific View residents to build community with each other, and to make new friends later in life. Charles compares the experience to high school, another environment where some of our longest-lasting friendships are cemented, after starting through the random chance of forced proximity. Charles might not have sought to be the third side of a septuagenarian love triangle; having ended up in someone else’s romantic drama, however, seems to be an experience he finds unexpectedly bracing, as does waking up after a night of partying with a full pizza stuck to his back.

Of course, the main driver of the plot is Charles’s investigation into the necklace theft — an undertaking that proves more thrilling than any hobby Emily could have suggested for him. It’s always fun watching an amateur gaining mastery, and while Julie does impart some basic sleuthing skills, Charles has to learn on the job. We’re told he has always been disciplined and analytical — Victoria was the impulsive, creative one — and Danson clearly relishes the moments when Charles gets to a clue through a clever improvisation. (It’s not always a clue, either. A charming moment comes early when Charles asks Julie if he can give her, as “Emily,” a cute nickname like Emerino or Eminem. She flatly refuses, but when he then calls her Froggy in front of Didi, he’s quietly self-congratulatory knowing she’ll have to go along with it from then on.)

Charles is also in nearly every scene, which means that calling this partly a buddy comedy isn’t quite accurate: It’s more of a buddies comedy. From the master/apprentice relationship between the businesslike Julie and the enthusiastic Charles, we transition to Charles parrying lascivious interest from his Pacific View neighbor Virginia (Sally Struthers); Charles facing envious hostility from the community’s previous alpha male, Elliott (John Getz); Charles forming a true friendship over backgammon with the introverted Calbert (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who left his life in D.C. to be closer to his tech-employed son but rarely sees him; and Charles redefining his relationship with Emily, who also gets drawn, giddily, into the case. 

One of the first observations Julie makes about Charles is that he’s a natural spy — she can tell he’s guarded — and while this has been true of Charles even with Emily, particularly since Victoria’s death, a side benefit of his work at Pacific View is forcing him to confront this truth about himself, and work on making changes.

We’ve seen Danson play, among many other roles, the coolest guy in any room (Sam Malone on Cheers), an unflappable showbiz star (“himself” on Curb Your Enthusiasm) and a supernatural architect working toward redemption for his demonic acts (Michael in The Good Place). Danson’s characterization of Charles feels — appropriately for a man in his silver fox era — like it’s built on everything he’s learned over his long and spectacular career. Consequently, it’s the best thing he’s done in years. Everyone crashed out in front of Netflix after a turkey dinner next week will undoubtedly agree.