In "The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey," adapted by Walter Mosley from his 2010 novel, Samuel L. Jackson plays the title character, a man in his 90s experiencing recently worsening dementia. The series, which premiered Friday on Apple TV+, is a not-always-easy mix of sentimental relationship story, detective story and late-life retrospective drama, with a central narrative device that qualifies as science fiction. (Mosley, who wrote or co-wrote every episode, is best known as a writer of crime novels but also has written straight science fiction, and was in the writers room for the second season of "Star Trek: Discovery" until he quit over what might be called an HR dispute.) But there is much to recommend it; for all its dark elements, it is, more than anything, sweet.
When we meet Ptolemy, in a prologue set near the end of the series, he is a man with his wits about him, in a neat and tidy place, a tumbler of whiskey and a revolver on the table in front of him, leaving a message on a tape recorder: "I'm sorry for what's about to happen here today. But I got to set things right."
We soon jump back two months to find him in a different state, hair and beard unkempt, with a bandaged hand, living in the same, now cluttered one-bedroom apartment, listening to the news and classical music simultaneously, amid towering stacks of books. Only his great-grandnephew Reggie (Omar Benson Miller in a lovely, modulated performance) looks in on him; he makes sure Ptolemy has eaten, trims his hair, takes him to lunch, does his banking.
