A Man on the Inside is an American comedy television series created by Michael Schur and starring Ted Danson as a retiree-turned-amateur private investigator. It is based on Maite Alberdi's 2020 documentary The Mole Agent.[1] The series premiered on November 21, 2024.[2]
Ted Danson as Charles Nieuwendyk,[3] a widower and retired engineering college professor who takes a job as an investigative assistant for a private detective to go undercover at Pacific View, a Continuing Care Retirement Community in San Francisco, in order to find a missing ruby necklace
Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Emily Nieuwendyk,[3] Charles' daughter who lives in Sacramento with her husband Joel Piñero and their three teenage sons
Lilah Richcreek Estrada as Julie,[3] a private investigator of Kovalenko Investigations who hires Charles
Stephanie Beatriz as Didi,[3] the managing director of Pacific View Retirement Community
Stephen McKinley Henderson as Calbert Graham,[3] a lonely resident at the Pacific View Retirement Community whom Charles befriends
Lori Tan Chinn as Susan Yang,[3] the Pacific View Retirement Community resident council president
Jama Williamson as Beatrice Vanbeck,[3] the activities director of Pacific View Retirement Community
In addition, Deuce Basco[4] co-stars as Jace Nieuwendyk-Piñero, Lincoln Lambert[4] costars as Nico Nieuwendyk-Piñero, and Wyatt Yang[4] co-stars as Wyatt Nieuwendyk-Piñero.
Mike Schur and his producing partner, Morgan Sackett, had been adapting the 1989 film, Field of Dreams, for Peacock (streaming service), but the series wasn't moving forward, so Sackett sent Schur an email asking if he'd seen The Mole Agent, to adapt that into a television series.[5] Sackett also suggested, via an email he sent to Schur, that Danson play the lead.[6]
In March 2023, it was announced that Danson was to star in the series.[1] The rest of the cast was announced in February 2024; at the time, the series was titled A Classic Spy.[3] In August that same year, Netflix released first look images from the series.[4]
We were dealing with the Secret Service and Joe Biden and Jill Biden literally rolling through our set, trying to figure out how to film exteriors on that apartment building while everything was shut down with bomb booths and checkpoints and all kinds of crazy stuff.[7]
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 95% approval rating with an average rating of 7.6/10, based on 22 critic reviews.[11]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 75 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[12]
