Vince Vaughn's crime comedy is a relaxing evening

Florida is always fertile ground for chaotic TV crime series. From “Claws” to “Palm Royale” to “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” the combination of a laissez-faire approach to law and order with tropical scenery has proven an effective foundation for storytelling on the small screen. Novelist Carl Hiaasen has long specialized in precisely that milieu, making his 2013 book “Bad Monkey” a natural candidate for adaptation. The result, a 10-part comedy on Apple TV+, takes the same droll, loving attitude toward its colorful characters as Vince Vaughn’s Andrew Yancy, a Keys police detective too confused by his surroundings to be upset by a chaotic love life or a faltering career.

“Bad Monkey” was developed by Bill Lawrence, the creator of “Scrubs,” who recently received a blank check from Tim Cook for “Ted Lasso,” by far the computer company’s most successful Hollywood project. Lawrence’s follow-up, “Shrinking,” earned a renewal and awards, but was a creative disappointment to this critic — more a tonally muddled rehash of “Ted Lasso” than an exciting use of free reign. “Bad Monkey” isn’t quite as ambitious; despite the strong cast made possible by Apple’s largesse, the show largely takes its cue from Yancy in its gentle, unaffected approach. It’s a new level, though, for Lawrence, who brings his sitcom-trained talent for levity (along with “Scrubs” star Zach Braff) to the world of drug smuggling, land grabbing and insurance fraud.

Yancy's first concern, however, is possible murder. After crashing his girlfriend's husband's golf cart into the marina with the victim on board (not a long story, it's exactly what it sounds like), he's been suspended. As a chance for redemption, he's assigned an errand. A severed arm has turned up off the coast of the Keys. If Yancy can get the appendage to Miami and get the case off his department's books, maybe he can quit his side job as a food inspector while his day job is on hold.

Since this is a TV series and not a guide to good decisions, Yancy can't help but complicate things. The protagonist's defining traits are his inability to keep his mouth shut or not to wake sleeping dogs. So he flirts with medical examiner Rosa (Natalie Martinez) while pressuring her to determine the arm's origins as a probable murder. After its owner is identified as a shady businessman named Nick Stripling, Yancy interrogates Stripling's wife Eve (Meredith Hagner, as outrageous and deliciously witless as she was in “Search Party”) about the suspicious circumstances of her husband's disappearance. The repeated warnings of Yancy's partner Rogelio (John Ortiz) to keep a low profile fall on deliberately deaf ears.

A clever move by “Bad Monkey” is to answer our questions quite early on. In Lawrence’s telling, “Bad Monkey” is neither a crime story nor a great mystery; a flashback that reveals how this arm Really landed in the Caribbean, and Yancy's own past with the Miami Police Department comes before the season's halfway point. (Suffice it to say, Yancy already had his second chance, when a car attack put him on even thinner ice.) The structural decision is a welcome change from the tiring tendency to delay such revelations until the audience has long since figured it out or until new information could usefully be incorporated into the plot. Some shows, like Apple competitor “Sugar,” turn their original premise into a last-minute twist; “Bad Monkey” cleans things up and becomes more of a game of cat and mouse between Yancy and his targets than 10 hours of our hero in the dark.

Vaughn has spent much of his press tour lamenting the end of the R-rated comedies that made his name. Despite a poorly received dramatic role in Season 2 of True Detective, he seems to have found a more comfortable place on TV after a guest appearance on the closing stretch of Drop It, Larry! The actor's deadpan, babbling effect doesn't quite fit the Margaritaville-esque setting of his latest role, but once Yancy is possessed, the performance is not unlike Natasha Lyonne's in Poker Face: both are manically fixated on a goal and believably indifferent to the risks of the chase.

“Bad Monkey” makes up for these misadventures with frequent trips to the Bahamas, where an unrepentant Eve has fled with her boyfriend Christopher (Rob Delaney, who was barely used until the second half of the season). The couple’s plan to build a beach resort brings them into conflict with locals like Neville (Ronald Peet), a fisherman and owner of the titular primate. (His name is Driggs, and legend has it that he once starred in a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.) The Bahamas action represents the series’ most significant expansion from the novel, exploring the effects of American meddling on longtime residents like hired enforcer Egg (David St. Louis) and Gracie (Jodie Turner-Smith), an Obeah mystic who calls herself the Dragon Queen. While Turner-Smith succeeds in developing Gracie beyond her intimidating, domineering exterior, the island interludes overall seem less focused, without Yancy's neurotic energy to drive the action forward.

“Summer TV” is a somewhat nebulous term, encompassing everything from unscripted trash like “Love Island” to endless hours of reruns. But “Bad Monkey” is exactly the kind of show that phrase brings to mind: unassuming but effective, offering all the distractions of a sunny day without having to turn off the air conditioning. Lawrence surrounds his core ensemble with personalities – a dim-witted real estate agent trying to get rid of a waterfront McMansion; a T-shirt baron with possible ties to the Russian mafia – that may not advance the central case but do lighten the mood. Yancy loves nothing more than to kick back in his deck chair and take in the ocean views, and “Bad Monkey” delivers exactly that feeling.

The first two episodes of “Bad Monkey” are available to stream now on Apple TV+. The remaining episodes will air weekly on Wednesdays.