Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nuclear Family’ On HBO, A Docuseries About Same-Sex Parents Fighting A Custody Suit From Their Sperm Donor

Nuclear Family is a 3-part docuseries directed by Ry Russo-Young about her own family’s custody battle against Tom Steel, the sperm donor who eventually entered the lives of Ry, her older sister Cade (created with the sperm from a different donor) and their mothers, Robin Young and Sandy Russo. Sometimes self-documentaries work, but much of the time they sound and look very self-involved. Will this docuseries fall into that trap?

NUCLEAR FAMILY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Two women are being interviewed and they’re asked “Tell me your names and your relationship to Ry.” One of the women replies, “To Ry? You mean you? Is this all going to be in the third person or something?”

The Gist: In the first episode, Ry talks to her parents at different stages; while much of the interview footage is in the present, we also see “Robin and Russo”, as most of their friends call them, in footage dating back to 1999, when a PBS special was done about Ry’s case. We also hear from Cade and from family friends, including Cris Arguedas, whom the couple entrusted with finding sperm donors when they learned that they could self-inseminate in order to have kids.

Much of the first episode documents how Russo and Robin met in 1979; Russo, who’s about a decade older, had been married to a couple of men and wanted to have a family. But when they settled in together, they had to accept the fact that, as a same sex couple, a family wasn’t possible. That was until Cris informed them about a movement where lesbians inseminated themselves at home.

Robin and Russo wanted their daughters to know who their sperm donors were, and tried to introduce both donors to both kids at the same time. Cade’s donor, who turned out to be an alcoholic, stopped coming after a visit where he was clearly drunk. But Steel, Ry’s donor and a prominent gay rights attorney in San Francisco, kept seeing the Young-Russo kids a few times per year, either on the east coast or closer to his home base.

Despite Robin and Russo’s constant reminders to treat the girls equally, Steel fell in love with Ry, but things got complicated when Steel’s boyfriend Milton got far too involved with the girls, and far too influential over Steel’s motives. In 1991, Young was sued for custody and immediate visitation by Steel; he wanted both girls to go to California to meet members of his family.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The self-documentary style of Nuclear Family recalls films and series like Murder On Middle Beach, though this one has a bit of a warmer, less navel-gazing feel.

Our Take: What Ry Russo-Young is trying to accomplish with Nuclear Family is to exorcise some demons in her otherwise bucolic childhood; when you’re nine years old and you’re in the middle of a sensational lawsuit that may end up establishing a new precedent when it comes to same-sex couples and their children, it has to leave you with questions. Through making this film, Russo-Young tries to answer those questions, via most of the people who were directly involved.

If you watch the first episode, you notice that Russo-Young tries mightily to keep her opinions out of the narrative. You hear her talking to her parents or family friends, who properly refer to her in the second person, which is always a bit weird when you’re watching someone talk to an off-camera interviewer. Every so often, you’ll hear Russo-Young narrating parts of the film or see her in segments that make it look like she’s being interviewed. But, for the most part, she keeps her current self out of the story, which helps bring in the viewer and keeps the proceedings from getting too self-involved.

Of course, the presence of the avuncular Russo and the more reserved but warm Robin help, and seeing footage of them from the past couple of decades shows how much they’ve opened up about this trying time in their lives. Not only is the story of how they got together a sweet one to hear, but the fact that they were an out lesbian couple with young kids in the early 1980s makes them damn near pioneers.

But it was fascinating to hear how much they underplayed the presence of Steel and Cade’s donor in the older interview footage, when Steel was especially present during Ry’s early grade school years. We see footage of costumed dramas made by the girls with Steel and his boyfriend Milton which show that he didn’t just pop in for dinner and go back to his hotel.

It’s not hard to find out how the rest of the story turned out, and there’s a good reason why Russo-Young didn’t get a chance to interview Tom; he is no longer with us. But she is able to tell an effective, albeit very personal, story that shows just how strong the family unit can be, even in the face of threats and unexpected traumas.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Robin tells Ry that “I think they underestimated us,” with regards to how tough they’ll be in fighting the lawsuit. Russo agrees by saying “Totally.”

Sleeper Star: We hope to see more of Cade Russo-Young, because we’d like to see how this lawsuit impacted her, given all the attention Ry was getting.

Most Pilot-y Line: None.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Nuclear Family promises to be an engaging 3-hour look at a strong family that withstood a challenge that would tear other families apart.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Nuclear Family On HBO Max