Your Friends & Neighbors

“Your Friends & Neighbors” is a clever look at the “haves” of the world.

Hamm nicely keeps Coop anchored enough for us to stay invested in his well-being, while he shows remarkable chemistry with much of the surrounding cast, particularly Hoon Lee as best friend/business manager Barney and Lena Hall as his troubled sister Ali.

Introspective and surprising, with a murder mystery in the middle of the narrative, the series scrutinizes some of society’s most affluent while putting their most broken and deplorable qualities on full display.

As a viewer we may not always agree with his decisions, the way he treats people or the path he chooses, but such is the strength and depth of our flawed protagonist that you cannot help but care what happens to him.

Your Friends & Neighbours is that kind of show – clever, very well put together and, if not entirely original, more than sharp enough to get away with it.

Tropper’s series does meander, but even if it’s not run as tightly as a ship as it could be, its original premise and its ability to make many of these characters interesting as they show flickers of humanity and then do something appalling keep you watching. The primary reason remains Hamm.

Even its shakiest moments are elevated by a sterling Jon Hamm and equally captivating Amanda Peet—the latter giving a career-best performance—as exes attempting to survive, and to some extent escape, a materialistic prison of their own making.

Hamm’s performance in Your Friends & Neighbors is what will keep us watching, as he transforms from a guy who has gotten too big for his britches to a guy who now knows that was the case and is doing something about it.

Seven of the nine episodes made available for review establish "Your Friends & Neighbors" as one of Tropper’s better TV efforts, although, in the tradition of past shows like "Banshee" and "Warrior," its handsomeness disguises significant creative shortcomings. That doesn’t make it less watchable – it's certainly that. Nevertheless, if you’re exhausted with voiceover exposition, you’re probably also over in medias res openers. .... Since it’s Hamm’s mug and voice doing the trespassing, these cliches are easily forgiven.

The first couple episodes can be tiring as the entire world is seemingly pitted against Cooper, but as time goes by, it becomes clear that this is simply his perspective, and his relationships are all more complex and nuanced than they initially appear. "Your Friends and Neighbors" isn't perfect, but Hamm alone makes it worth giving a chance.

Only seven of the episodes were available for review, so whether a viewer should invest at all is a gamble. Like a hedge fund. One sure thing is that Mr. Hamm will keep your attention for as long as you have him, and another is Ms. Hall, who is a treat, especially when she sings.

While the series initially captures its audience’s attention with the prospect of watching a rich man stealing from his neighbors, the secrets that continue to unravel are what will truly reel viewers in.

It’s an addictive binge-watch with the type of Apple TV+ sheen that you’d come to expect. Further, it centralizes a Hamm performance that perfectly encapsulates the type of likable loser that he’s so good at portraying. But, it’s also something of a missed opportunity, never able to make the type of statement it is so obviously reaching towards.

A chattier Hamm character is a differentiator. But in early episodes, it’s kind of a one-note story that didn’t inspire me to want to watch more.

His thefty activities aren’t any different — not spiritually, anyway — from his legitimate ventures at the hedge fund, where the goal is maximizing wealth for the already wealthy, no matter who suffers. Coop has just picked more deserving targets this time. It’s too bad the series (which has already been renewed for another season) isn’t interested in sorting through those parallels more deeply.

Thanks to fellow standouts Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn, a somewhat formulaic look at the lives of the wealthy still has moments rife with chemistry and the feeling of something more interesting bubbling beneath the surface. And though it promises some thrilling heists and sizzling secrets, this pricey drama comes up short.

It isn’t screaming for another nine (or multiple of nine) episodes to conclude its business, to make its points. I could certainly stand to see more of Ali/Hall, it’s true. Still, I’d like these people to get it together sooner than later.

It’s all very easy on the eye. Showrunner Jonathan Tropper has written a solid, if uninspiring story, and Apple have brought it to the screen with the sort of colour palette you’d expect from a DFS advert. And yet there’s something a bit insipid about Your Friends & Neighbours.

You long for this show to catch fire, to burn through its fears and choose just one of the many brilliant things it could be.

It just doesn’t seem interested in anything delving any deeper in the traditional Peak TV way (which this very much wants to be). There are a few stabs at cultural commentary, like expensive Scotch as a metaphor for social standing, and the occasional oblivious obscene consumption. But not much deeper than that.

Something about the breaking-bad comedy (which, it should be stressed, Hamm is really good and basically perfectly cast in) isn’t quite clicking.

Overwritten and underbaked, Your Friends & Neighbors borrows from other, better shows — notably star Jon Hamm’s Mad Men — but falls short by comparison.

Instead of taking risks, it’s generally accommodating, content to be real estate porn and a gentle lampooning of real estate porn all at once — which makes it easier for Apple to call it a drama, when I like it much more when it’s being a dark comedy. Regardless, to return to Cheever, it’s a show that’s too content to swim with a too conventional tide.

“Your Friends and Neighbors” isn’t a let-down because it falls short of greatness. It’s a let-down because it doesn’t try that hard to be great.

“Your Friends and Neighbors” is basic and tiresome, just marking time until getting back to Coop’s increasing immersion in the criminal underworld. There are glimpses of the more exciting, layered show that “Your Friends and Neighbors” could have been, especially when Coop and Elena are working together, challenging each other’s received notions about class and gender. Those moments are far too fleeting, and they lack any urgency or momentum, despite strong chemistry between Hamm and Carrero.