A Man on the Inside

Ted Danson made me cry reading Shakespeare. He just did. It just happened. I have always been a fan of his but I would never have guessed that that could be a thing.

This show is all heart, but it's never sappy. It never reaches. It finds its emotional center after about the third episode, and then it finds that there is gravity there.

I will admit that I am not as young as I used to be. I will also admit that I have anxiety about aging. I think at some point everybody gets to that, and that's where I am now, and, I admit, maybe that's why this show is speaking to me. I am aware that it probably won't speak to everyone in the same way.

But maybe that's why it's so good. Not as a subjective "oh I'm aging, let me love a show about a guy experiencing aging", but also as a "I have loved ones who are aging, let me watch a show about what they're going through". It works, as Danson's Charles would say, "in multitudes".

The whole cast is amazing — we all love Mary Elizabeth Ellis — and the side characters get a lot of their own development in ways that aren't cheap or dismissive.

I did not think I would like this show. The concept is hokey — a retired professor is brought in by a private investigator to solve a mystery in a retirement community — but they make it work, and they do that by taking it seriously. And that's how good comedy works — good actors are given good shit to work with by people who care about what they're creating. I hope Netflix sees fit for it to stick around a few seasons because it's the kind of show that can make Ted Danson make a grown-ass man cry via poetry. (Goddamn you Ted.)

Edit: I should disclose that it's 7:21AM in Las Vegas and I've been up all night binge watching and drinking Evan Williams whiskey. I should also disclose that I am completely OK with this.