Ted Danson’s Netflix comedy gets lost

November 22, 2024 Vaseline blog 0

Ted Danson’s Netflix comedy gets lost

It’s hard not to have great expectations of Ted Danson and Michael Schur.

The actor and producer brought us comedy gold together in NBC’s “The Good Place,” and individually have contributed to some of the greatest TV of all time. There’s Danson’s long “Cheers” career, plus “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and many more, and Schur’s run of sitcom success with series like “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Parks and Recreation.” So when the pair teamed up for a new Netflix mystery-comedy, surely it meant bigger and better things, right?

Unfortunately their new series set in a San Francisco retirement home, “A Man on the Inside” (now streaming, ★★ out of four), doesn’t have that “Good Place” or “Brooklyn” spark. A lightweight mishmash of themes and ideas, the series feels like it’s still a sketch on the drawing board rather than a fully realized story with a beginning, middle and end. It all sounds good on paper but whimpers in execution.

It’s a shame, because the story and the creatives involved had so much potential. Danson, still as charming and magnetic as ever, plays Charles, a mild-mannered retired professor who’s struggling to find a groove in his new life after his wife died from a long battle with dementia. He answers a classified ad in the newspaper to be a spy – well, something sort of, kind of similar to a spy. Private detective Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) has been hired to recover a priceless necklace stolen from an old woman in the luxurious Pacific View community. Julie needs someone over 70 to move in and investigate what happened. Charles shows up with working knowledge of a cellphone and a doe-eyed eagerness to please, so she hires him.

Of course, once inside, Charles becomes smitten with everything about the place, from kind-hearted director Didi (Stephanie Beatriz) to gossipy ladies Florence (Margaret Avery) and Virginia (Sally Struthers) to stoic backgammon champ Calbert (Stephen McKinley Henderson). Charles tries to put his emotions aside and solve the case while restoring his relationship with daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), who has been strained since the death of his wife.

If it sounds like there’s a lot going on, there is, and at times it’s all fighting each other. “Inside” feels like half a show, or maybe thirds of three different shows that don’t add up to a whole. There’s one about a private detective and her “inside man” trying to solve a crime (incidentally, also the plot of a 2008 episode of “Psych”); another is a soapy dramedy about all the juicy goings on inside Pacific View (complete with romantic dalliances and double crosses); and a third centers on Charles rediscovering how to be alive without his wife, with the help of Calbert.

Alas, none of these dangling story threads are woven into something complete. The mystery/crime element is underbaked and underwhelming. The retirement-home relationship drama pops up at one moment and then disappears the next. Calbert barely registers in the first half of the series, but his friendship with Charles takes up most of the ending. The episodes often feel like collections of scenes rather than a coherent installment of a larger story. What we’re left with is inherently dissatisfying in its wishy-washiness.

“Inside” needed to pick a lane and stick with it, because some really beautiful moments are hidden between its crazy plot lines. An episode in which Charles shows homebody Calbert all his favorite San Francisco sights is almost too melancholy and sweet, a neatly composed poem dedicated to living life to the fullest. These themes echo Schur’s other work, from the deeply philosophical “Good Place” to “Parks”: his characters always want to do right and live well. Charles certainly strives for both, but we never get deep enough into his character (or anyone else’s) to find out what really makes them tick.

There are excellent stories to be told about aging, and Hollywood is slowly learning that life isn’t over after the Botox wears off. From Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie” to Max’s “Hacks,” we are starting to see stories about people over 65 that don’t resort to stereotypes and cheap jokes, and it’s wonderfully refreshing.

“Inside” only scratches the surface of those stories, but it could have dug so much deeper. I’ll be waiting and hopeful next time Schur and Danson want to try something together again.