There aren’t many stars who never wear out their welcome. One is Ted Danson, who I believe now has the record for most episodes in prime time for a leading actor on television.
The 76-year-old broke out on Cheers over 40 years ago and helped define a golden age of TV sitcoms. Becker followed and later there was his recurring appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm before five seasons on The Good Place. Between all the comedies Danson shone in dramas such as Damages, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Fargo.
Michael Schur, who co-created Parks and Recreation as well as The Good Place, knew Danson was the perfect fit to play Charles Nieuwendyk. He is a retired engineering professor-turned amateur private eye assistant in Netflix’s A Man on the Inside. Nieuwendyk lost his wife when she passed away following many years struggling with alzheimer’s. Charles seems lost himself when we meet him, sitting in his cool but empty mid-century San Francisco home, clipping out “interesting” newspaper articles to mail to his daughter. Newspapers? Mail?? This character is someone who simply has not moved on.
Things change after a no-nonsense private eye named Julie Kovalenko (played with just the right amount of flinty edge by Lilah Richcreek) puts an ad in the paper looking for a snoopy assistant. She needs a rare bird, a senior citizen who can at least work a smart phone.
Prodded by his married daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) to find a part-time job or hobby, Nieuwendyk answers the ad and becomes Julie’s man on the inside of a retirement home where a robbery has been committed. He gets into being a sort of spy, letting Emily know he’ll wear a pocket hankerchief with his ever-present jacket and tie to signal he’s on sleuth time.
This then is a situational comedy. You have to buy that a detective would plant an elderly amateur sleuth in among the residents of a retirement community. Sitcoms, however, are not what they were back when Cheers was winning Emmy. There is no audience, not wisecracks and really very few laughs. This is more of a streaming “comedy” aimed at older viewers. Examples would be The Kominsky Method, Ricky Gervais’ After Life or Apple TV+’s Shrinking. In fact, it is less jokey than all three of those shows.
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Danson, therefore, has arrived with all the chops to lean into a series with heart and emotion and just enough humour to keep it from being treacle. Because audiences love Danson, they want to spend time with him — even in a retirement home!
A few years ago, the Fox comedy The Cool Kids was also set in a seniors residence. That took a broader approach, casting comediy veterans such as David Allen Grier, Vicki Lawrence and Martin Mull as part of the elderly community. Like that series, which featured Jamie Farr and others in cameos, A Man on the Inside takes advantage of the fact that there are wonderful actors in their seventies and eighties who can find work again stealing scenes in such a setting. Credit for kicking that door down should also go to Steve Martin and Martin Short and their great older guest stars on Only Murders in the Building.
On the Inside, viewers of a certain age will welcome back old friends such as Sally Struthers — Archie’s daughter Gloria from All in the Family — as Virginia, who has an instant crush on Danson’s spry spy. Susan Ruttan, a regular thirty-plus years ago on LA Law, plays Gladys, a rather subdued former fashon designer. Veronica Cartwright, with credits dating back to Leave It to Beaver and “The Birds,” plays another smitten lady resident, Beverly.
Others fall in that seen that face, can’t remember the name category. Clyde Kusatsu, who has over 300 IMDb credits, plays an ever chipper, dining obsessed gent named Grant. John Getz, who has been in a million things, plays Niewendyk’s cigar-smoking “sexual rival” Elliott. Ubiquitous veteran actor Stephen McKinley Henderson plays Calbert, a lonely man who finds a cribbage mate and more when Niewendyk checks in. Margaret Avery (“The Color Purple”) plays Florence, the house poet and Virginia’s wing woman.
If you have watched TV your whole life and can remember it all in black and white, it is heartening just to see these folks hitting their marks again. For me it was the same feeling several years ago seeing Ann Morgan Guilbert, who played Millie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, steal scenes in the palative care ward of a hospital in the short-lived HBO series Getting On (2013-15).
A Man on the Inside, however, is more than a victory lap for Hollywood oldtimers. Other key roles are filled with well-cast younger actors, such as Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as “Didi,” the managing director of the Pacific View Retirement Community. This is a very different role for her, and she nails it. There is also Eugene Cordero as Emily’s husband Joel and their three videogame-obsessed kids, who behave like little monsters except when they’re with their gramps.
After a brisk opening sequence leading up to Charles arriving at Pacific View retirement home, the series slows down a tad. Some might even find it boring in spots. As a clinic in acting, however, it never lagged for me. Danson is superb and never more comfortable in his own skin. If you have listened to the podcast he does with former Cheers colleague Woody Harrelson, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, he has really opened up emotionally. Danson puts it all out there and embraces his joys and sorrows on that podcast. He does it as well as A Man on the Inside.
We binged all eight episodes over a couple of nights and this first season builds towards an uplifting conclusion. Some of the relationships Charles forges while aiming to solve the case in a month feel accellerated, especially the bromance between Charles and Calbert. Seeing those two characters play their two-handers is pretty sweet, however, as is the more antagonistic match up between Danson and Getz as Charlie and Elliott. There is also the added bonus of all that San Franscisco scenery. Get set, as Charlie does, to fall in love with the Golden Gate bridge.
Three cheers, as well, to Struthers who finally gets to sink her teeth into another role as the home’s most aggressive girlfriend. Ruttan as Gladys also shines in a more difficult role.
Which brings me to my own personal take on senior care centres. My mom Margaret has been a resident of Tall Pines Long Term Care in Brampton, Ont., for going on eight years. With any luck she will turn 100 there in December. I’ve been a man on the inside, visiting often and helping to feed her in a wing of the centre where residents get extra care as people with dementia and alzheimer’s.
Charles, in the series, cannot even bring himself to enter “The Neighbourhood” ward of Pacific View. He cared for his wife in her declining years and saw her slip away in terms of cognitive abilities before she physically left him. Man on The Inside provides a window on this experience that is cleaned up for television. What you learn is that, even though we’re still blessed to have them with us, dementia forces a slow series of goodbyes. Getting old, you learn, is not for wimps. Good caregivers provide services that are in constant demand and while they are also only human the best do it with an incredibly generous good nature.
A facility such as Pacific View is more of a country club, but those exist all across the GTA around Toronto, provided you have the means to access them. They just are not generally equipped to care for people deep in the throes of dementia.
Like the old Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to join any club that would have you as a member, most of us will push back about checking into long term care. What I have observed, and other have with family members and loved ones on the inside, is that there are still plenty of hilarious things that go on as life goes on. As Danson’s character observes, it is fascinating to see just how much of senior living can take you back to high school experiences. My mom used to shock me with the nasty nicknames she came up with for several of her resident friends. As it is with Struthers character and others, the flirtatiousness is often also off the charts. This tests the theory that anything can be made fun of, but I’ve seen evidence that, in the right hands, it can.
People of all ages are clique-y and silly and petty and wise and yes, sometimes childish. Even in their most tender and declining moments, people in long term care can still be warm and funny and heartbreaking. Kudos, therefore, to Danson and Schur, the perfect choices to lead us into this less explored world with The Man on the Inside.
