Reasons for optimism? “You’re Friends & Neighbors” offers a few.

First, the new drama series marks “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm’s return to a leading TV role, this time as a man who, after losing his well-paying job as a hedge fund manager, turns to stealing from — you guessed it — his friends and neighbors.

It is also the creation of TV writer-producer Jonathan Tropper, whose action-drama series “Banshee” was a spectacular guilty pleasure — one elevated by the work of “The Boys” lead Anthony Starr as a criminal posing as the sheriff of a crime-filled town.

Lastly, it is the latest notable release from Apple TV+, which, thanks in part to the critical and audience responses to “Severance,” has moved closer to solidifying its status as the new HBO, the platform prioritizing quality over quantity.

And its first episode, “This Is What Happens,” penned by Tropper and helmed by talented “I, Tonya” and “Cruella” director Craig Gillespie, suggests “Your Friends & Neighbors” may actually deliver on the promise of a high-end streaming series. It is a TV show, yes — its storytelling is episodic from the jump — but one that feels cinematic in its production values and its performances.

However, a drop — not a steep dive, perhaps, but at least a dip — is evident in the second episode, "Deuce,” also directed by Gillespie and, again like the first, available this week. And the five episodes that follow — Apple made seven of the season’s nine installments available for review — see “Neighbors” settling in at a level of being watchable but never enthralling.

Things begin so promisingly in “This Is What Happens,” the camera slowly revealing the face of a groggy Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Hamm), who soon realizes he’s lying on tiled flooring in someone else's house and, more importantly, next to a dead body leaking blood. After some cleaning, Coop stumbles out of the house and right into the backyard pool, where he floats down and looks upward.

“And at that moment,” he says in the series' intermittent narration, “I couldn't help but catch a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye of the swirling hot mess of my life and wonder how the hell everything could go so wrong so fast.”

The episode then takes us back four months, to an upscale bar, where a 28-year-old woman (Kitty Hawthorne) — looking to escape a group of money bros or, as she puts it, “Patrick Bateman fanboys” — sits next to him. She works at his company, on a different floor. That isn’t the problem with them engaging in something romantic, he says, but their 20-year age difference is. In what is essentially a monologue for Hamm, Coop lays out for her, in great detail, what would happen if they were to pursue a romantic relationship. When she counters that all she wants is sex on this night, however, he has no objections.

A relatively short time later, after a game of squash as Coop sits with him in a health club recovery pool, Coop’s boss, Jack Bailey (Corbin Bernsen), fires him for sleeping with the New York City firm’s employee. It matters not that she didn’t report to Coop, Jack insists, only that she is lower than him in company status. It’s an HR violation and Jack’s hands are tied, he insists, but Coop knows this is just a way for his boss to push him out and take his accounts.

(“It’s not yours if you can’t keep it,” Jack will later tell him.)

Coop is recently divorced from his wife of many years, Melanie (Amanda Peet), and still paying for the house she lives in with his ex-friend and former NBA player Nick Brandes (Mark Tallman). Along with the house Coop is renting — “It’s small, but don’t worry, it’s also depressing,” he says — there are endless bills tied to his and Melanie’s private school-educated kids, 17-year-old tennis prodigy Tori (Isabel Gravitt) and 14-year-old aspiring musician Hunter (Donovan Colan).

Coop’s solution: thievery. Like him, other residents of the posh, secluded Westmont Village, have more valuable possessions than they can keep track of and have become lax with security measures because they feel safe. And as he runs in their social circle, he has a good handle on when folks are home, deciding to pop over to one family’s house after they’ve headed off to vacation in Belize.

You have to suspend some disbelief with “Your Friends & Neighbors”; even with its hand-waving explanations, you never buy that Coop wouldn’t be caught quickly. That said, this line of work does get trickier, even after he develops a partnership with someone from his life.

The larger issue with the series: Its storytelling is simply run-of-the-mill. This is not the kind of propulsive narrative that has you even remotely desperate to watch the next episode. That’s especially disappointing considering Tropper also is an author, with novels including “This Is Where I Leave You” to his credit.

Furthermore, as with many works of fiction that address class, it has nothing interesting to say. Some people have more than they need and others a lot less — got it. Perhaps were it interested in truly skewering its wealthy characters for their excesses, that would be something, but, for the most part, these are likable-enough folks.

The series’ greatest asset is Hamm, constantly compelling and fun — especially as Tropper finds an excuse for the actor to do little bits of work that recall both Don Draper’s “Mad Men” advertising pitches and Hamm’s voice-over work in luxury car commercials. Thanks to his performance, the show succeeds, if vaguely, as a character study of another man breaking bad.

Better yet: Hamm — a notable casting choice also because he starred in a movie titled “Keeping Up With the Joneses” in 2016 — and Peet (“Togetherness,” “The Whole Nine Yards”) have the kind of chemistry that crackles on the screen. You may not buy Coop getting away with these robberies, but you will believe he and Mel were married. An episode in which Coop and Mel take the kids to their alma mater, Princeton, so Tori can check it out, is easily its best so far.

The show also benefits from supporting work by cast members such as Hoon Lee (a “Banshee” alum who showed up on the Apple series “See” after Tropper took over as showrunner), as Coop’s affable money manager and pal, Barney Choi; Lena Hall (“Snowpiercer”), as Coop’s unbalanced musician sister, Ali, who moves in with him; and Olivia Munn (“The Newsroom”), as Samantha Levitt, a Westmon resident who’s going through a divorce and having a secretive on-again-off-again thing with Coop.

Ultimately, its various appeals do not add up to something engrossing. Instead of waiting for “Your Friends & Neighbors” to get back to that bloody body, you may just want to leave Coop sinking to the bottom of that pool.

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‘YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS’

2 stars (out of 4)

Rating: TV-MA

How to watch: On Apple TV+ April 11

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