‘A Man On The Inside’ Takes On The Realities Of Old Age

From any angle, it’s a mystery how the new comedy “A Man on the Inside” with Ted Danson should be one of the most popular television shows right now. While it’s light and easy enough to watch, the jokes are bland, there are too many sappy moments, the pacing is uneven, and the main story is completely unrealistic. The writing and performance for Danson’s character, Charles, is well done, but the other characters all tend to be flat and uninteresting. 

However, what makes the show worthwhile, and likely explains much of its popularity, is its much-needed treatment of a neglected issue in America today: coping with old age.

Even more than death, Americans fear getting old. Modern culture, both secular and religious, actively discourages the reality of becoming old and infirm. Even as most people hope to reach a paradisal afterlife, they have no choice but to fear what will happen when they cease to be useful and become dependent on younger family members. And that’s assuming they even have family, which many increasingly don’t.

This fear is understandable. As theology professor Randall Smith recently argued, Americans generally treat their older relatives with resentment and loathing: “The elderly are no longer respected, as we are bidden to do by the Scriptures; rather being old is increasingly treated like having leprosy. We put old people in institutions the way they used to ship lepers off to leper colonies — ‘for their own good.’”

To its great credit, “A Man on the Inside” confronts this issue head-on. The protagonist, Charles Nieuwendyk, is a retired professor hired to infiltrate a retirement community and figure out which one of the residents is stealing jewelry. This (admittedly thin) setup leads to Charles discovering the importance of community, the collective need to support the elderly, and the spiritual poverty that has resulted from segregating them from the world.

For instance, Charles becomes good friends with a misanthropic resident, Calbert, who never sees his son despite moving across the county to live close to him. Even though Charles’ friendship helps Calbert out of his isolation, the lesson is clear: Calbert’s son is guilty of neglect. 

Along this line, many of the show’s other lessons are showcased in the retirement home director, Didi. A young woman with apparently nothing going on outside of work, Didi devotes herself entirely to running to the retirement home and meeting everyone’s needs. Her plot arc demonstrates that the real burden of caring for the elderly isn’t so much the elderly themselves, but the cold corporatized system entrusted to care for them.

It’s a fair point, but this tends to be missed because of the unfair demands placed on Didi’s shoulders. Is society supposed to have more women like her, people who heroically sacrifice everything to care for the elderly? Or should society encourage more young people to help people like Didi so she can have a life of her own? If it’s the latter, the show does a poor job of making this apparent.

For Charles’ part, he is not yet in need of assisted living, but he does need to reconnect with his adult daughter, Emily, which is the reverse of Calbert’s situation. Depressed and detached after his wife deteriorates and dies from Alzheimer’s disease, he limits his communication with Emily to small talk and sending her random articles on obscure topics. While Emily doesn’t necessarily depend on him materially — she’s a happily married mother of three teenagers — she suffers emotionally from his choice to remain aloof.

In terms of its relevance, it’s a good storyline. Many members of the boomer generation have callously abandoned their adult children, thinking that parenthood ended when their kids turned 18 and moved out. Unfortunately, this dynamic would have been better handled in the context of a serious drama (something akin to “Ladybird“) than a feel-good comedy.

Overall, the show’s biggest drawback is its utter lack of spirituality. Its philosophic outlook is mainly epicurean, stressing friendship, moderate pleasure, and emotional balance. Death is nothing to be feared, understood, or accepted. It’s just something that happens. As for worrying about one’s mortality, this can be easily cured with a few fun hobbies and a rowdy evening of sex, drugs, and alcohol.

This shallow outlook definitely undermines the show’s finer points, but it’s easy enough to look past it. It’s more important that the show is finally bringing attention to one of the country’s most underrepresented and under-appreciated groups of people. With the number of geriatrics outnumbering the number of babies being born, America is growing old fast. Instead of continually denying this, we might as well come to terms with this truth and make the most of it, as Charles and his friends do.

Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He is the founding editor of The Everyman, a senior contributor to The Federalist, and has written essays for Newsweek, The American Mind, The American Conservative, Religion and Liberty, Crisis Magazine, and elsewhere. Follow him on X and Substack.