Mike Schur devised a mostly foolproof formula for the perfect modern workplace sitcom that began with “The Office” and steadily evolved through “Parks and Recreation” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Watching enough of his shows and you'll notice a repeating pattern of types, starting with the well-meaning but weird protagonist who is good at his job but takes some effort to fall for. Every episode after the pilot is a courtship between that character and the audience, facilitated by the wingmen and wingwomen surrounding them.
Those are familiar personalities too – the stardard-bearer for normalcy (like Rashida Jones’ Ann Perkins in “Parks and Rec”), the skilled weirdo (Dwight Schrute in “The Office”), the lovable dim bulb (Manny Jacinto’s Jason in “The Good Place").
Sometime during “The Good Place,” Schur began to break pattern. Somewhat. "The Good Place" is still a workplace fable connected to a post-life, rules-defined bureaucracy that's eventually defeated and rebooted by a few souls pursuing the meaning of goodness. It was reliably and breathtakingly hilarious, heartfelt and often heartbreaking.
His latest, Netflix's “A Man on the Inside," operates as a twist on an old maxim. If dying is easy and comedy is hard, making the years leading up to death humorous without making the people living through them into a joke takes . . . something else. Here, Schur brings the audience into the reality of what it means to keep going after much of what you've taken for granted fades away.
Pulling that off requires prioritizing heartfelt moments over brazen hilarity which, again, few TV storytellers do well. I'm guessing that's because in the youth-obsessed entertainment industry, few know what it’s like to be old or conceive of that age as being a time of renewed independence and agency. "Every great thing in your life, looking back on it, feels like a miracle," says one of its dearest figures, and he's talking about simple moments like meeting his wife and cooking for her for the first time.
For “A Man on the Inside,” inspired by the 2021 documentary “The Mole Agent,” Schur reconnects with “Good Place” star Ted Danson as Charles Nieuwendyk, a retired engineering professor living in San Francisco who struggles to keep going after his wife’s recent death.
Already this diverges from Schur’s previous hits, in that Charles doesn’t have a corporate structure to navigate or any professional obligations. He's unmoored, and that's the problem. Charles is at once a Renaissance man and a Luddite. Without prompting he'll enthusiastically offer up fun facts about the Golden Gate Bridge, the subject of his book, or the root system of a sequoia. At the same time his idea of maintaining a connection with his daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) is snail mailing her newspaper clippings of random esoterica, like an art forgery at a German museum.
When she cites how distant he’s grown and urges him to take up a new hobby, Charles answers a classified ad from a private detective, Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada), looking for help with a jewelry theft case at the Pacific View Retirement Home.
“A Man on the Inside” is not a slapstick snort-fest in the mold of so many movies headlined by elderly stars misbehaving, thank goodness. Earnest and genuine in its storytelling, it's populated with fully realized characters who only somewhat adhere to Schur’s closet of personality types. Danson does find a love again — a Schur signature — only here, that spark isn’t for any one person or the community Charles stumbles into. He's forging a new relationship with the joy of living.
Nevertheless, the Pacific View residents fall into a few familiar categories. There’s an incurable curmudgeon (Lori Tan Chinn), the hardheaded jerk everyone tolerates (John Getz), and the popular girls (Margaret Avery and Sally Struthers). Despite flirtatious overtures from Struthers’ Virginia, Charles doesn’t feel a pull toward anyone except, maybe, for Susan Ruttan’s Gladys, for reasons that have nothing to do with romance, and Stephen McKinley Henderson's Calbert.
Some stunning monologues weave naturally into the script, and Calbert does gorgeous work with some of the best of them. A standout in the seventh episode chronicles the tumbling cascade of infirmities that come with old age that start with aches that never go away. Then the words start to leave you, he says. The nouns go. Then, the sleeplessness.
"We're all in denial," he says. "You have to be. Only way to cope." Henderson steeps his delivery not in tragedy, but with a pure knowing and empathy. It is comforting and real. If I could I'd watch that speech a thousand times. I just might.
“A Man on the Inside” is a reminder of how much “The Good Place” was a product of its time, having debuted at the beginning of the first Trump administration and steadily amping up its examination of what it means to be good until it landed with an uplifting, tear-soaked conclusion in 2020.
“A Man on the Inside” meets our current moment of yearning for connection by placing the question of finding it in the hands of a withdrawn widower intellectualizing his way through his days, which Danson plays with easy charisma. Even Charles’ goofier moments gleam with a satin elegance that scrapes against the no-nonsense manner of Estrada’s P.I.
Her role operates as more of a device than that of Ellis’ Emily or Stephanie Beatriz’s retirement community director Didi, whose emotional bond to the residents reflects the level of care Charles is advised to refrain from having, but that can’t be helped.
Ellis channels the exasperation and hurt that comes with a parent pulling away in their twilight years. She’s also terrific as a mom weighted with the responsibility of raising three sons who aren’t the brightest bulbs. In Emily’s household, everybody is a “bro,” which makes her erudite father’s distance even more infuriating.
Beatriz plays with a spectrum that wasn’t available to her as Rosa Diaz in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” personifying the balance Schur and his writers strike between serious matters and laughter. Didi enables the actor to explore her dramatic breadth within a comedy that is decidedly and intentionally funny.
That is said with a firm recognition and respect for the writers’ restraint in that department – an easy edit given the deep bench of seasoned performers in its cast.
Balancing out Danson are standout performances by Struthers and Ruttan, but Henderson's anchoring turn as a solitary figure Charles values at first as a resource but soon comes to cherish for personal reasons, infuses the story with grace and soul.
“A Man on the Inside” doesn’t take long to find its way, but its thoughtful treatment of loneliness and grief is wonderful in the way it makes it OK to ache along each discovery about Charles and the people he gets to know without tumbling into oversentimentality.
Instead of reaching for the easy joke, or any at all, “A Man on the Inside” makes tenderness and honesty its North Star. It’s not the funniest comedy on TV, but it may be the most watchable and poignant. We can always use reasons to laugh, but the stories that remind us of our humanity and worth at any age have higher value – especially now.
"A Man on the Inside" debuts Thursday, Nov. 21 on Netflix.
