Ted Danson Becomes A Mole Agent In ‘A Man On The Inside’ As Netflix Sets Premiere & Unveils Trailer

“For the majority of seniors, the biggest threat to their wellbeing isn’t an accident or health, it’s loneliness,” says Stephanie Beatriz’s Didi, director of the Pacific View Retirement Home in Netflix’s upcoming series A Man On The Inside.

To combat this Ted Danson’s retired professor Charles becomes a mole agent at the home. “I don’t know how to be a spy, but it’s good for me, makes me feel useful,” he says in the first trailer for the show.

A Man On The Inside, a sweet, scripted adaptation of Maite Alberdi’s documentary The Mole Agent, debuts on Netflix on November 21.

The series, which is exec produced by Mike Schur among others, follows Charles as he feels life has nothing new in store for him. A year after his wife’s passing, he’s become stuck in his routine and grown distant from his daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis). But when he spies a classified ad from private investigator Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada), he’s inspired to roll the dice on a new adventure.

Charles’ mission: to go undercover inside the Pacific View Retirement Home in San Francisco and solve the mystery of a stolen family heirloom. Everyone, residents and staff alike, is a potential suspect, and it’s up to Charles to solve the case without landing on the radar of Didi (Stephanie Beatriz), the all-seeing, all-knowing director of Pacific View. But keeping a low profile proves difficult as the affable Charles quickly endears himself to his fellow residents. Being a “man on the inside” sends Charles on an exciting journey that makes him realize there’s a lot more life left to be had — and allows him to reconnect with Emily in the process.

The series, which tackles themes of ageism, loneliness and Alzheimer’s dementia, came about after The Good Place and Hacks exec producer Morgan Sackett suggested turning The Mole Agent documentary, which was set in Chile, into a scripted series.

It also stars Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sally Struthers, Eugene Cordero, Margaret Avery, John Getz, Susan Ruttan, Lori Tan Chinn, Clyde Kusatsu, Marc Evan Jackson, Jama Williamson, Wyatt Yang, Deuce Basco, Lincoln Lambert and Kerry O’Malley.

The eight-part series is produced by Universal Television with Schur and Sackett exec producing alongside 3 Arts’ David Miner, Micromundo Producciones’ Maite Alberdi and Marcela Santibañez, who were being the Oscar-nominated doc, and Motto Pictures’ Julie Goldman and Christopher Clements, who also produced the doc.