''The Old Man'' is an American

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

thriller television series based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Thomas Perry. It was developed by Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine and premiered on FX on June 16, 2022. The first season consists of seven episodes. Following its premiere, the series was renewed for a second season.

Premise

Dan Chase (

Jeff Bridges Jeffrey Leon Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning over seven decades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Bridges comes from a prominent a ...

) is a former

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

operative who has been living

off-the-grid Off-the-grid or off-grid is a characteristic of buildings and a lifestyle designed in an independent manner without reliance on one or more public utilities. The term "off-the-grid" traditionally refers to not being connected to the electrical gr ...

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

for thirty years. After killing an intruder who breaks into his home, Chase is forced into hiding. While in hiding, Chase rents a room from Zoe McDonald (

Amy Brenneman Amy Frederica Brenneman (born June 22, 1964) is an American actress and producer. She worked extensively in television, coming to prominence as Detective Janice Licalsi in the ABC police drama series ''NYPD Blue'' (1993–1994). Brenneman nex ...

), with whom he is forced to partner while on the run.

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Harold Harper (

John Lithgow John Arthur Lithgow ( ; born , 1945) is an American actor. Lithgow studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his work on the stage and screen. He has been the recipient of numerous ...

) is called upon to bring in Chase because of their complicated past during the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...

. Working alongside Harper are his proteges, FBI agent Angela Adams (

Alia Shawkat Alia Martine Shawkat ( ; ar, عليا مارتين شوكت; born April 18, 1989) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in '' The Old Man'', '' State of Grace'', Maeby Fünke in the Fox/Netflix television sitcom ''Arrested Develop ...

; in fact Chase's daughter Emily) and CIA officer Raymond Waters ( E. J. Bonilla), as well as Julian Carson (

Gbenga Akinnagbe Olugbenga Enitan Temitope Akinnagbe ( ; born 12 December 1978) is an American actor and writer, best known for his roles as Chris Partlow on the HBO series ''The Wire'' and as Larry Brown on the HBO series '' The Deuce''. Early life Akinnagb ...

), a hit-man hired by Harper to kill Chase.

Cast

Main

as Dan Chase / Henry Dixon / Johnny Kohler *

as Harold Harper * E. J. Bonilla as Raymond Waters *

Bill Heck Bill Heck is an American actor who has appeared on Broadway and in television shows, such as '' The Leftovers'' and '' The Old Man'', and films, including in the role of Billy Knapp in the Coen Brothers' western ''The Ballad of Buster Scruggs''. ...

as young Johnny Kohler / Dan Chase * Leem Lubany as young Belour Hamzad (née Daadfar) *

as Angela Adams / Emily Chase *

as Julian Carson *

as Zoe McDonald

Recurring

Hiam Abbass Hiam Abbass ( ar, هيام عباس, he, היאם עבאס; born 30 November 1960), also Hiyam Abbas, is a Palestinian actress and film director. Personal life Hiam Abbass was born in Nazareth, Israel, to a Muslim Arab family. She was raised ...

as Belour Hamzad (née Daadfar) / Abbey Chase * Kenneth Mitchell as Joe *

Joel Grey Joel Grey (born Joel David Katz; April 11, 1932) is an American actor, singer, dancer, photographer and theatre director. He is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in the musical '' Cabaret'' on Broadway as well as in the 1972 fi ...

as Morgan Bote * Pej Vahdat as young Faraz Hamzad * Noor Razooky as young Kaftar *

Echo Kellum Echo Kellum (born August 29, 1982) is an American actor and comedian. Kellum is best known for his roles as Curtis Holt on The CW drama series ''Arrow'', Tommy on the FOX sitcom ''Ben and Kate'', and Hunter on NBC's ''Sean Saves the World''. E ...

as Mike *

Jessica Harper Jessica Harper (born October 10, 1949) is an American actress and singer. Harper began her feature film career with a starring role in Brian De Palma's ''Phantom of the Paradise'' (1974), ''My Favorite Year'' (1982), as well as a role in ''Insert ...

as Cheryl Harper *

Rowena King Rowena in the Matter of Britain was the daughter of the purported Anglo-Saxon chief Hengist and wife of Vortigern, " King of the Britons". Presented as a beautiful '' femme fatale'', she won her people the Kingdom of Kent through her treachero ...

as Nina Kruger

Guest

* Christopher Redman as young Harold Harper *

Jessica Parker Kennedy Jessica Parker Kennedy (born October 3, 1984) is a Canadian actress. She played Melissa Glaser on the CW series ''The Secret Circle'', Max on the Starz original series '' Black Sails'' and Nora West-Allen / XS on ''The Flash'', and has also app ...

as Woman at Bus Stop *

Faran Tahir Faran Haroon Tahir (born February 16, 1963) is a Pakistani-American actor. Tahir was born in Los Angeles to an artistic family. His parents were actor Naeem Tahir and radio host Yasmeen Tahir and his grandparents were writers Imtiaz Ali Taj and ...

as Rahmani *

Rade Serbedzija Rade may refer to: * E De people, a people group in Southeast Asia also called "Rhade" or "Rade" * places in Lower-Saxony, Germany: ** Rade, Neu Wulmstorf, a village in the district of Harburg * places in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany: ** Rade, Stei ...

as Old Suleyman Pavlovic * Jacqueline Antaramian as Old Woman *

Navid Negahban Navid Negahban ( fa, نوید نگهبان; born June 2, 1968) is an Iranian-American actor. He has appeared on '' 24'', ''Homeland'', '' Mistresses'' and as Amahl Farouk / Shadow King in the second and third seasons of FX's ''Legion''. He has al ...

as Faraz Hamzad

Episodes

Production

The series was announced in July 2019, with FX ordering a

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

with

cast to star. In September,

Jon Watts Jonathan Watts (born June 28, 1981) is an American filmmaker. His credits include directing the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superhero films '' Spider-Man: Homecoming'', '' Spider-Man: Far From Home'', and '' Spider-Man: No Way Home''. He was ...

was set to direct the pilot, also serving as an executive producer, with

and

added to the cast.

joined in October. In November,

Bob Iger Robert Allen Iger (; born February 10, 1951) is an American businessman who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Walt Disney Company. He previously served as the President of ABC Television between 1994 and 1995 and the President and Ch ...

announced that the show would air on

FX on Hulu FX Networks, LLC, is a company consisting of a network of cable channels plus a production company and a subsidiary of the Disney General Entertainment Content segment of The Walt Disney Company. Originally a part of 21st Century Fox, the comp ...

, and

Austin Stowell Austin Stowell (born December 24, 1984) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in ''Dolphin Tale'', its sequel ''Dolphin Tale 2'', ''Love and Honor'' (2013), ''Whiplash'' (2014), and as Francis Gary Powers in Steven Spielberg's '' Bridge ...

was added to play a younger version of Bridges' character. In February 2020, Kenneth Mitchell disclosed he had a role in the series. Stowell would be recast in March 2020 with

, and

, Leem Lubany and E. J. Bonilla were cast in main roles.

and Pej Vahdat were cast in recurring roles in December 2020. The series was two-thirds of the way into shooting when production shut down in mid-March 2020 as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Production resumed in the fall with three episodes remaining to film, but was soon halted when Bridges was diagnosed with

lymphoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enlar ...

in October 2020 and left to undergo cancer treatment. The show stayed in production for a short period after Bridges' diagnosis in order to shoot scenes from the remaining episodes that do not feature Bridges' character. In September 2021, Bridges announced his cancer was in remission. Production ultimately resumed in February 2022. On June 27, 2022, the series was renewed for a second season.

Release

The series premiered on June 16, 2022, on FX in the United States and Canada. It was also premiered on

Disney+ The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and deligh ...

(

Star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

) on July 13, 2022, in Australia and New Zealand and

Star+ A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

in Latin America.

Reception

Critical response

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 97% approval rating with an average rating of 7.4/10, based on 59 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "''The Old Man'' is just as intrepid and spiky—and derivative—as younger action heroes, with Jeff Bridges lending invaluable gravitas to this bone-crunching thriller."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 72 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Ratings

Audience viewership

According to the streaming aggregator Reelgood, ''The Old Man'' was the most watched program across all platforms, during the week of June 24, 2022, as well as during the week of June 29, 2022, and during the week of July 2, 2022. According to the streaming aggregator JustWatch, ''The Old Man'' was the most streamed television series across all platforms in the United States, between June 1, 2022, and 30, 2022, as well as during the week ending July 3, 2022, and the third during the week ending July 17, 2022.

Accolades

For their performances in the first season of the series, Bridges and Lithgow received

Golden Globe The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...

nominations for Best Actor in a Drama Series and Best Supporting Actor in a Musical/Comedy or Drama Series respectively.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Old Man, The 2022 American television series debuts 2020s American drama television series American action television series American thriller television series English-language television shows FX Networks original programming Soviet–Afghan War fiction Television productions suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic Television series about the Central Intelligence Agency Television series about the Federal Bureau of Investigation Television series about old age Television series by 20th Century Fox Television Television shows based on American novels Television shows set in New York (state)