Binge-worthy: A Man On The Inside is a sweet spy comedy on ageing

A Man On The Inside

Netflix
★★★★☆

A Man On The Inside may not be among the top 10 most-watched series on Singapore’s Netflix charts. But the eight-part comedy from Mike Schur, creator of the highly acclaimed hit comedy The Good Place (2016 to 2020), is sweet, heart-warming and worth a sit-down.

American actor Ted Danson, who also starred in The Good Place, leads A Man On The Inside as Charles, a retired engineering professor who lives alone in the house he used to share with his late wife, who died of Alzheimer’s disease. The bereaved widower leads a dull and isolated existence.

After his daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) urges him to try something new, Charles applies for a new job as a spy. He is hired by a private investigator to infiltrate an eldercare home as a new resident after a major theft is reported.

Here are three reasons to tune in.

1. Tinker Tailor Senior Spy

A Man On The Inside is ostensibly a spy comedy and many of the laughs in the early episodes are a twist on the usual espionage tropes.

Charles gets a training montage, with him learning the basics of snooping around and gathering intelligence with his private investigator boss Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada), but struggles mightily. He is unsuccessful in playing inconspicuous – when he tries to surreptitiously take a photo of a couple for his training, he ends up taking multiple wefies with them instead.

His “boomer” tendencies also tend to show up in his work as a spy, such as how he opens every voice recording he sends to Julie with a long and scientific description of the weather.

It is a cute way to set up the series’ premise before it starts dealing with more sombre themes of ageing and regret.

2. Finding community in old age

Much of the series is set in an eldercare home and most of the characters are seniors in their 70s and above. Like Charles, they are people who have married, divorced, raised children, battled cancer and lost people they love. But life still has much to offer them and they, too, still have much they want to put out into the world.

Two residents – Virginia (Sally Struthers) and Elliott (John Getz) – are a bickering, on-and-off couple who found love in old age. Another resident Flo (Margaret Avery) starts pursuing her creative interests at the home by reading and practising monologues from Shakespeare. And Charles, who had become withdrawn after his wife’s death, forms a supportive and loving friendship with fellow resident Calbert (Stephen McKinley Henderson) over quiet games of backgammon.

While the series comes across as a little too idealistic – the care home depicted is too well-maintained, beautiful and well-run to be true – it shows how the things people need to thrive are similar at every age: love, passion and, most importantly, someone to share life with, be it platonically or otherwise.

3. Veteran character actors

Aside from 76-year-old Danson and Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s (2013 to 2021) Stephanie Beatriz in a supporting role as the home’s managing director, many veteran character actors – whose faces you might recognise, but names escape you – get a chance to shine.

Struthers, perhaps most known to younger audiences as Babette from Gilmore Girls (2000 and 2007), offers comic relief for most of the show. But in a scene in which she finds out about a friend’s death, her helpless cries will make audiences ache.

While Henderson (Dune, 2021 to present) plays Calbert as unfriendly and grumpy in his early scenes, over the course of the series, he becomes Charles’ closest friend, unveiling his straight-shooting but warm nature.

The 75-year-old American actor manages to toe the line and find a just-right balance between the two sides of Calbert, making him one of the show’s most lovable characters.