In Praise of Second Chances
HBO Max has plenty of shiny gems, like Friends and the Criterion Collection library. One of Max’s most impressive treasures, though, is buried pretty deeply: Men of a Certain Age, a dramedy that aired a decade ago on TNT to critical praise and audience indifference. A tale of fortysomething disappointment and compromises, it is anything but shiny. The show is acutely aware of the roll around the midsection of car salesman Owen (Andre Braugher), the lines on the face of actor Terry (Scott Bakula), and the anxiety weighing down gam
bling addict Joe (Ray Romano). Where other cable series at the time, like Breaking Bad, wrapped middle-aged ennui around thrilling criminal enterprise, this one kept its stories deliberately mundane, the better to illustrate the smallness of its heroes’ lives (see the sweet victory in untangling the red tape of a home repair). But with those small stakes came big rewards, not least of them from the acting role reversal between Romano and Braugher. At the time, it was startling to see the Everybody Loves Raymond star doing nuanced drama and the Homicide powerhouse getting laughs. Thanks to Romano’s work with Martin Scorsese and Braugher’s on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the surprise factor is gone, but each man’s facility with playing to the other’s type remains enormously appealing. When you look in the mirror at 48, Joe says, “you recognize yourself, but there's that little bit of you that you don’t.” This series has aged far more gracefully than its heroes, playing just as well in Peak TV as it did a decade ago. A.S.