‘A Man on the Inside’ is a playful show with a lot of heart

A Man on the Inside

Created by Michael Schur (Netflix, 2024)

A few minutes into A Man on the Inside, it becomes clear that the series’s creator, Michael Schur (The Good Place), is trying to bottle lightning. The new Netflix comedy-mystery serves up a delightful string of Ted Danson’s antics alongside excellent performances by his younger costars. If Schur and the writers were trying to recreate some of the chemistry, humor, and wit they found between Michael and Eleanor on The Good Place (Danson and Kristen Bell), it appears that they may have succeeded, giving viewers a cast of new and familiar faces who play brilliantly against Danson’s earnest, if sometimes clueless, lead.

A Man on the Inside—based on the documentary film The Mole Agent—finds a retired professor (Danson) living a semireclusive life until he responds to an intriguing ad in the classifieds section of his newspaper. Suddenly, his quiet life is turned on its head as he juggles a relationship with his daughter Emily (Ellis) and the covert expectations of his new boss, Julie (Estrada). Julie is a private investigator who hires Dr. Charles Nieuwendyk (Danson) to pose as a new resident in a retirement and assisted living community. Someone has hired Julie to solve an alleged theft, but knowing that she could not sleuth effectively given her age, she hires Charles to act as her proxy—a bumbling informant, a likable elderly spy. Danson shines in this role. Conveying complexity with ease, Danson plays a man who is wise and guarded yet trusting and naive; a man who knows the pain of loss yet finds joy in trivial, silly things.

With snappy dialogue, A Man on the Inside is playful and fun, but like The Good Place, it also has a lot of heart. Without drenching the show in saccharine sentimentality, A Man on the Inside manages to touch on deeper themes of friendship, loss, and belonging. Maybe lightning does strike twice.

A Man on the Inside is now streaming on Netflix.