As shameless civic boosters of all things San Francisco, we here at The Bold Italic relish any opportunity to see our fair city on screen, whether it be in movies or on television. After all, despite the spate of “doom loop” stories in the national press, we all smugly know that we live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Our unique hills, bridges, and cable cars always make for a scenic backdrop.
So we were excited to see just how much screen time SF gets in the new Netflix series, A Man On The Inside, starring an affable Ted Danson as a lonely, 76-year-old widower who gets hired by a private investigator to be an undercover mole at a retirement community, in order to help solve a case of a missing necklace.
Based on the Oscar-nominated documentary, The Mole Agent, a 2020 Spanish-language film from Chile, the show is a cozy, low-stakes dramedy with a charming ensemble cast of older actors, a refreshing change of pace from most youth-oriented television fare.
Created by Michael Schur, whose previous credits include Parks And Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Good Place, the new series continues his pleasant brand of breezy, goodhearted vibes, and with a 97 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.8 stars out of 10 on IMDb, it’s easy to see why.
With only eight 30-minute episodes, it’s a quick binge watch, which we did in one night, hoping to catch on screen as many local sights as possible, playing a game of “spot the shooting locale.”
The beautiful Cathedral Apartments on Nob Hill at California and Jones, built in the 1920s by noted California architect W.H. Weeks, is the stand-in for the fictional Pacific View Retirement Community. However, unless the show runs for 8 seasons like a certain ‘80s/‘90s sitcom, it will never reach the same iconic status as the Victorian in Lower Pacific Heights known as “the Full House house.”
And as much as I want to say something like, “Sure, Ted Danson is wonderful in this, but the real star of the show is San Francisco,” it’s just… NOT.
With 99% of the action taking place either inside the retirement home or other interiors, we’re mostly treated to brief glimpses of San Francisco B-roll footage you’d expect: the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, long lens vistas of hills and cityscapes.
Sharp-eyed viewers will even spot a half-built Salesforce Tower in a sweeping skyline shot, obviously stock B-roll footage shot several years ago while the building was still under construction. This, in spite of one of the retirees having a son who works in the tower as a “senior cloud solutions architect for Salesforce.” “What’s that mean?” asks Danson’s character. “NO idea,” replies his new elderly friend. “All I know is he’s important and he owns his house.”
There are a few other tossed-off jokes about fog and how expensive San Francisco is, but for the most part, A Man On The Inside could be set in just about any city in North America. It’s not until the penultimate episode 7 that we finally get out of the retirement community enough to have what could properly be termed “a love letter to San Francisco.”
In this episode, Ted Danson’s character takes his new friend around town to show him his favorite spots. As a former engineering professor who wrote a book about the Golden Gate Bridge, of course that’s the first stop. But we also get a ferry ride around Alcatraz, a baseball game at Oracle Park, sitting under the oldest tree in Armstrong Redwoods park, hanging out the Palace of Fine Arts, and finally, drinking wine at Tony Nic’s Cafe in North Beach.
It’s not a montage though. Along the way, these two retirees ruminate on the perils of aging, surviving the heartbreaking death of a spouse, dealing with memory loss and dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, and more. Despite the show’s high-concept “doddering old guy becomes an unlikely spy” set-up, these difficult subjects — not common material for a lighthearted sitcom — are really the heart of the story, and they’re delivered with warmth, care, and grace.
As a San Franciscan, it’s certainly fun to watch A Man On The Inside for all the location spotting. But by the end, you’ll want to binge the series for its cozy, feel-good vibes. And while the storyline gets wrapped up with a bow by the end, Schur and Danson have set it up for a possible ongoing series. Perhaps if Netflix orders a second season, we’ll get a more San Fran-centric storyline befitting of its setting.
Adriana Roberts is a DJ and performer with her Bootie Mashup parties, as well as a writer and trans influencer.
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