On Screen: “Man on the Inside”
Man on the Inside
At last — a sitcom for grown-ups in their golden years — “Man on the Inside.”
Ted Danson is at the top of his game as charming Charles Nieuwendyk, a lonely widower and former professor who re-invents himself as an amateur private detective — to the amazement of his married daughter, Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), who has been urging him to find a hobby and/or try something new.
In the first season, Charles answers a classified ad placed by a private detective, Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada): “Wanted: Investigative Assistant. Male, aged 75-85. Must have phone.”
A lover of espionage thrillers, Charles is the right age, and he knows how to take pictures with his phone, so he goes undercover at Pacific View Retirement Community to discover who stole a resident’s necklace.
The second season finds Charles returning to teaching engineering at struggling (fictional) Wheeler College in San Francisco, unscrambling a blackmail scheme involving the president’s (Max Greenfield) stolen laptop that threatens to tank a donation from a toxic billionaire (Gary Cole).
As an added attraction, Charles develops a love interest with a madcap music teacher, Mona Margadoff (Mary Steenburgen, Danson’s real-life wife of 30 years), who may also be a suspect. They’ve previously appeared together in “Pontiac Moon,” “It Must Be Love,” and “Living with the Dead.”
“It’s so much fun to play falling in love with someone you’re madly in love with,” Danson says. “You just sink into each other, which is lovely.”
Created by Mike Schur (“Cheers,” “Parks and Recreation,” “The Good Place”), the character-driven concept is based on Maite Alberdi’s Oscar-nominated Chilean documentary “The Mole Agent” (2020) about an 83-year-old who goes undercover at a nursing home to catch a thief.
What also distinguishes this series is its compassionate kindness and belief in human decency, particularly as it pertains to the current epidemic of loneliness among the elderly.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Man on the Inside” is a sweet, senior-centric 7 — all episodes from both seasons are streaming on Netflix and it’s been renewed for a third season.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.