Florida is always fertile ground for a chaotic crime TV movie. 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 landscapes has proven an effective setup for storytelling on the small screen. Novelist Carl Hiaasen has long specialized in precisely this milieu, making his 2013 book “Bad Monkey” a natural candidate for film adaptation. The result, a 10-episode comedy on Apple TV+, takes the same funny, loving approach to its colorful characters, like Vince Vaughn’s Andrew Yancy, a Keys police detective too bewildered by his surroundings to worry about a messy love life or floundering career.

"Bad Monkey" was developed by Bill Lawrence, the creator of "Scrubs" and recent recipient of a blank check from Tim Cook, courtesy of "Ted Lasso," by far the computer company's most successful Hollywood venture. Lawrence's follow-up, "Shrinking," may have earned an extension and awards, but it was, to this critic, a creative disappointment — more a tonally confused "Ted Lasso" rehash than an exciting use of free rein. "Bad Monkey" isn't exactly a level higher in ambition; despite the stacked cast afforded by Apple's largesse, the show largely follows Yancy's lithe, unforced approach. It's a new register for Lawrence, however, who brings his sitcom-honed flair for levity (along with "Scrubs" star Zach Braff) to the world of drug dealing, land theft and insurance fraud.

Yancy’s immediate concern, however, is a possible murder. Fresh off a suspension after ramming his girlfriend’s husband’s golf cart into a marina with the victim aboard—not exactly a long story; it’s exactly what it sounds like—Yancy receives a message that offers a chance for redemption. A severed arm has turned up off the coast of the Keys. If Yancy can bring the appendage back to Miami and get the case off his department’s books, he might be able to retire from his side job as a food inspector while his main job is on hold.

Because this is a television show and not a guide to good decision-making, Yancy can’t help but complicate things. The protagonist’s defining trait is his inability to keep his mouth shut or let sleeping dogs sleep, so he flirts with coroner Rosa (Natalie Martinez) while pressuring her to rule the gun’s origins as a probable homicide. Once its owner is identified as a shady businessman named Nick Stripling, Yancy interrogates Stripling’s wife, Eve (Meredith Hagner, as monstrously, delightfully shallow as she was in “Search Party”) about the suspicious circumstances of her husband’s disappearance. Repeated warnings to back off from Yancy’s partner, Rogelio (John Ortiz), fall willfully on deaf ears.