Geriatric crime shows have a long history. TV programs of this sort feature a charismatic senior actor devoted to the solution of murders or other crimes. Only Murders in the Building is a good example of this time-honored genre. A Man on the Inside is an interesting variant on this formula. Populated by older actors, the genre appeals to an increasingly elderly TV audience. These shows are not too gruesome, avoid explicit sex (although on cable there is a lot of cursing) and, generally, adhere to genre conventions. The audience knows what to expect, understands the format, and enjoys the interplay between the witty and familiar characters. Expectations aroused are reliably met. In many ways, these shows are throw-backs to the television conventions with which I grew up in the sixties and seventies. There is a didactic edge to these programs -- messages about sincerity, open expression of feelings, honesty, and fortitude are reliably delivered. The audience need not perch on the edge of its collective chair fearing some kind of shock to the system or subversive or disturbing content. Mysteries are solved and malefactors brought to justice. These shows depict a world subject to perverse and murderous passions that are ultimately subdued by the comforting presence of the old media figures with whom the audience is invited to identify. The format is conservative in all senses, a TV genre tailored to audiences that watch Fox news. Such programs are well-written and ingenious within the limitations of the genre, deliver plenty of surprising twists and turns without distressing the viewers, and are moderately entertaining -- the shows are sufficiently intriguing and have enough star charisma on display to hold your attention for eight, or so, episodes per series. Furthermore, on Cable, these shows are successful enough to be renewed at the end of each year for an additional season. Clearly, geriatric crime shows appeal to some deep-seated and mostly pre-cognitive emotional instincts in their viewers. They depict old age as fulfilling, not lonely, full of interesting interactions with eccentric folk -- a rational universe in which evil exists but within certain bounds imposed by law and community. The elder actors in these shows are reassuringly spry, intelligent, and have good memories -- although they often jest to the contrary. Old age has not dulled them, but sharpened their wisdom and moral reflexes. We don't need to be afraid of aging because it is possible to lead a productive and, even, exciting life into old age. These actors haven't retired due to feebleness or inability to memorize their lines: they are still going strong. They embody the aspirations of their mostly older audiences.
Examples of this genre date back to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries, often dramatized on TV. Matlock with Andy Griffith is another noteworthy prototype for the two Cable shows here under consideration. Matlock, featuring Griffith as doughty, spirited defense lawyer (in the mold of Perry Mason) ran for nine seasons beginning in 1986 and spun-off two other series following the same pattern -- Jake and the Fat Man (with William Conrad), a show involving the prosecutorial equivalent of Matlock's defense lawyer, and Diagnosis: Murder with Dick Van Dyke as a forensic doctor who solved murder cases for eight seasons beginning in 1993. A new series of Matlock is underway currently (2024) starring Kathy Bates. As should be evident, these shows provide showy employment for TV and movie personalities who were famous and beloved in their youth -- such actors can be recycled in their old age in programs of this sort, capitalizing on resources of good will built up earlier in their careers.
In Only Murders in the Building, Steve Martin and Martin Short collaborate with Selena Gomez to solve homicides that occur in their expensive and exclusive upper West Side Coop, a building in Manhattan called the Arconia. This is a tony residence in which people like Sting reside. (The show features many cameo appearances by noteworthy stars and celebrities.) Steve Martin's character, Charles Haden-Savage is a mostly retired actor, famous for starring as a TV detective, Brazzos, 30 years earlier. Short plays Oliver Putnam, a flamboyant Broadway director, also mostly retired -- the part signifies as gay, but Putnam is heterosexual and, in fact, has a torrid romance with Meryl Streep. Selena Gomez, playing against type as a rather dowdy character (she is not a glamor girl in this show) completes the trio as Mabel Mora, a twenty-something woman who between gigs -- she's house-sitting in her Aunt's apartment when the show begins. The premise for the program is that the three lead actors, after "meeting cute" in the first episode, work together on a podcast directed toward solving a murder that happened in the Arconia. There are now four seasons of the show, with a fifth to follow, so the formula has been successful and resulted in a large body-count at the Coop. The shows are very ingeniously written with many twists and turns that the audience can not anticipate. The Arconia with its colorful tenants, up-scale apartments and secret passageways is as much a character as the three actors that drive the stories. Over four series (of eight 43 minute episodes per season), the audience is introduced to the characters' families and lovers (Selena Gomez' Mabel Mora is bisexual and has paramours that are both male and female. There are a variety of clever sub-plots. Each season is very formulaic -- the murder investigation focuses on three suspects seriatim; each suspect seems plausible as the murderer and sufficiently flawed to have committed the crime, but will, inevitably, turn out to have an alibi and not be the actual perpetrator. In the last episode, the perpetrator is identified, cuffed and hauled away, only for another murder to immediately follow -- thereby, triggering another season. Martin Short is the best performer in the show. He's fantastically versatile and, after the manner of Jonathan Winters in the TV shows featuring him (for instance Mork and Mindy), seems to improvise all sorts of funny business for the show. It's reassuring that the two elderly actors retain their sexual charisma and each is supplied with age-appropriate romantic partners (Charles is briefly in love with a serial murderer who stalks him throughout the series -- she's too good and interesting to be put to pasture and has a reappearing role; as previously observed, Oliver Putnam romances Meryl Streep -- as I write, there are rumors that the love affair between Martin Short and Meryl Streep isn't merely fictional). Selena Gomez is alternately irritated by the antics of the old men but, also, loyal and affectionate -- she's part of the wish-fulfillment apparatus of the series suggesting that old people and stylish young women can work together in a mutually gratifying way. The show has a lilting theme that is an "ear-worm"; it's a bit like a less sinister version of the theme for Succession. In my view, the show is a little too long and takes too much time to reach it's conclusion each season but it's sufficiently entertaining that I will certainly watch the Fifth Season when it drops.
A Man on the Inside traffics in the themes and structures developed in Only Murders in the Building and its many ancestors, but has a different, and more serious, approach to this material. A Man on the Inside is written and produced by the people who made the metaphysical and eschatological The Good Place and, accordingly, is somewhat philosophical in its approach to this material. Only Murders in the Building aspires to be a clever murder mystery with comedic overtones; A Man on the Inside pretends to be a mystery but, in fact, is a meditation on old age -- it's mostly serious in tone. The premise of Man on the Inside is that Ted Danson is a retired architect and designer whose wife has died, rather horribly, of Alzheimer's disease. Danson is at loose ends, lonely, and alienated from his perky daughter whom he rarely sees -- she lives in Sacramento with her family and he lives somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area. A nasty businessman has deposited his elderly mother in an assisted living compound called Pacific View. Someone has stolen her ruby necklace, apparently a very valuable piece of jewelry. The demanding and brusque son hires a private detective firm to solve the mystery of this theft. The owner of the private eye agency, a witty, hard-boiled woman in her thirties, needs someone to infiltrate Pacific View to conduct a investigation in that place. You guessed it: On a whim, Danson applies for the job and, then, moves into the Assisted Living facility as a mole. Of course, the place is filled with grumpy and amusing elders who drink heavily, smoke dope, and engage in various sexual frolics. Danson, whom everyone likes, becomes a center of Pacific View's social life. After various setbacks and adventures, he solves the mystery and, then, leaves the Assisted Living facility, enraging many of its residents who trusted him with their confidence and friendship. In the course of the series -- eight episodes that are a spritely 30 minutes each -- Danson reconciles with his daughter from whom he has become estranged. The merry crew of oldsters at the facility forgive Danson's character and all ends well. He goes back to his expensive home in San Francisco and, with the help of his daughter, gets rid of the mementos of his wife who tragically died due Alzheimers dementia. He gives a lecture on the Golden Gate Bridge at Stanford, where he previously taught, and, then, gets a call from the detective agency -- the boss has another job for him. There are many appealing and interesting characters in the show including Sally Struthers who plays the part of a sexually voracious old lady.
These shows are implicitly about facing mortality with fortitude, wisdom, and good spirits. A Man on the Inside makes these themes explicit. It's an odd compound of wish-fulfillment fantasy and grim reality -- in the show, people become demented, die, and engage in vicious quarrels, but this all occurs in the context of the elegant Assisted Living facility with its fine dining, hair salons, and cocktail parties. Some characters are lonely and isolated, but there is always the possibility of becoming involved in the warm and inviting community and experiencing fulfillment with the others. A friend of mine lives in an Assisted Care facility and I have visited him several times. It's an expensive place with a good view of a park among big, old churches and museums in Minneapolis. In the dining room, the residents sat at their tables in stoic silence. No one said a word. My friend told me that there were many feuds and grudges poisoning the place. We came to dinner late and, when my friend asked for piece of pie, he was rudely told that the kitchen was closed. I didn't see any trace of the jolly, merry company in A Man on the Inside. The food was tasteless and mediocre, served by preening kids who were the children of Somali and Sudanese immigrants listening to ear-buds and, more or less, unresponsive to the residents. No one was enjoying cocktails or doobies when I was at the place. Indeed, the milieu seemed nightmarish to me. But A Man on the Inside assures its viewers that a meaningful, happy life can be lived in such places. I'm skeptical, of course, but I think the message is reassuring to most older people. Maybe, the horrors of the nursing homes and memory care places and Assisted Living facilities that we have witnessed are anomalies. Perhaps, a better fate awaits us in a place like Pacific View. I doubt it, but TV always reassures us with fantasies either about violence or love or justice and community. A Man on the Inside seems oblivious as well to the enormous expense of such places -- what are the residents paying each month for their plush surroundings, the compassionate care attendants, and the various amenities such as fine dining and cocktail parties? The fantasy structure, therefore, involves residents seemingly with great wealth. But the show is amusing and I'm not so curmudgeonly as to suggest that the morals that it teaches are without value.
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