• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Today

“The Residence” on Netflix has emerged as one of streaming’s biggest hits, and no wonder.

This is a show that goes where so many other shows never go -- to a land called Entertainment.

The residence in the show’s title is none other than the White House. The scenario is simple: A member of the White House service staff has been found dead on an upstairs floor while a state dinner is underway on a floor below.

To sort out what happened, the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department calls in a renowned detective who works as a consultant on important cases. 

When the detective arrives, she establishes herself so forcefully and indelibly that we suddenly become aware that we are witnessing the introduction of a new and very special TV character.

She has charisma and eccentricities to spare, but she does not have to carry the whole show on her own shoulders.

This show boasts a veritable regiment-sized troupe of supporting characters, all of whom have a role to play in the background, foreground and sometimes both.

They include the President himself and his husband, a coterie of butlers, a social secretary, handymen, maintenance personnel, gardening staff, chef, pastry chef, in-house florist and more -- a total of 157 non-governmental personnel in the Executive Mansion.

In conformity with its title, “The Residence” does not concern itself with portions of the White House related to governing, most notably the Oval Office, which is never seen.

Instead, the show takes place mainly in an upstairs warren of bedrooms and staff offices, and below ground in the various maintenance departments.

The state dinner hosting the prime minister of Australia and other dignitaries from Down Under is taking place in the State Dining Room, which is not residential, but it is nevertheless managed by the White House service staff.

So, what makes this show so attractive? You name it. Those who have watched all eight episodes or are still making their way through all of them are prone to conversations about elements of production that would never occur to them in discussions of other shows.

In this show, the talk centers around various characters and the actors who play them, including Uzo Aduba as Det. Cupp, Randall Park as an FBI agent assigned to follow her around, Giancarlo Esposito as the manager of the household staff, Al Franken (remember him?) as a U.S. senator (lol), Bronson Pinchot as the pastry chef, Jane Curtin as the President’s mother-in-law, Eliza Coupe as another senator, Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Chief of the MPD, Taran Killam as an “energy medium,” Jason Lee as the President’s crazy brother who lives upstairs, and Kylie Minogue as herself.

Standouts with whom I was unfamiliar include Edwina Findley as a White House butler, Mary Wiseman as Marvella the combustible head chef, Molly Griggs as the social secretary, Ken Marino as the President’s chief advisor, Brett Tucker as the Australian foreign minister and Susan Kelechi Watson as the Esposito character’s immediate underling. They are all performing at a very high level.

Also starring in “The Residence”: The story, the White House setting that has been re-created down to the last detail, the brilliant writing and editing -- especially those -- music, cinematography, casting and the list goes on and on. The writing is what gets commented on, over and over again.

At the center of the action is Det. Cupp, who works at her own pace as she ignores all the noise around her and slowly creeps toward solving the mystery of this man’s death.

Her most conspicuous trait is her obsession with birdwatching, and the lessons she derives from it as she applies what she has learned about the behavior of birds to understanding the humans she encounters in her investigation.

Best of all, “The Residence” has no violence, very little profanity and no unhappy visions of the apocalypse.

I have written many times that, as reflected in the vast majority of content today, TV is one of the unhappiest places on Earth. Fortunately, “The Residence” flies in the face of all that.