Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Unstable’ On Netflix, Where Rob Lowe And John Owen Lowe Play A Comedically Grieving Father And Son

It’s always amazing how often two shows with similar premises premiere at around the same time. Usually those shows are different enough to demonstrate that even though their premises are similar, there’s room for both in people’s viewing rotation. That’s the case with a new Netflix series about grief and family, that debuted only a month or so after a similar show on Apple TV+.

UNSTABLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A large, modern house. We see a photo of a family, then pictures of Ellis Dragon (Rob Lowe) on magazine covers. In his bedroom, Ellis sits on the edge of his bed and watches a video of a dog being pulled out of icy water, and tears up.

The Gist: Ellis is the genius CEO of his eponymous corporation, where he and his scientists have created new materials and other matter that is supposed to help restore and revive the environment. But since his wife Katie died in a car accident, he’s been, well, off.

On his first day back in the office, his CFO, Anna Bennet (Sian Clifford), tells him that if he can’t give his board of directors news about his latest project, they’ll vote him out as CEO. He tells her he’ll be at their meeting that day — but Anna cancels it when she walks into Ellis’ office and sees him naked. What’s going on with Ellis is more than just grief, though; Katie kept Ellis grounded, according to Anna, and there’s no one there to check him on his more ridiculous impulses.

Anna knows what needs to be done; she sends Malcolm (Aaron Branch), Ellis’ former assistant and now a project manager, to New York to appeal to Ellis’ son Jackson (John Owen Lowe) to come back home. Jackson has resisted Ellis’ lifelong desire to make his son into a new version of him; he’s struggling as a flutist, despite his interest and skill in the biotech work his dad is doing. Malcolm is a childhood friend, and though he tells Jackson it’ll likely be a crapshow, Jackson still needs to be there for his dad. Ellis agrees to fly west for 24 hours.

Jackson finds out from Anna that Ellis’ board-appointed therapist has “disappeared”, which of course is alarming. Ellis is not in the office; Jackson finds him working on a landscaping crew for his friend Juan (Frank Gallegos). citing the idea that putting down sod and watching lawns grow is like “watching a birth.” Jackson isn’t there five minutes before he’s exasperated by Ellis’ quirks and criticisms, but agrees to go to the office karaoke night in order to talk more.

Jackson also meets the company’s top researchers: Ruby (Emma Ferreira), who’s immediately attracted to him, and the shy Luna (Rachel Marsh). Ellis and Luna connect on a much nerdier level, as they find out outside the karaoke bar.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Unstable feels like a bit weirder take on the grief and family that’s currently being explored by Shrinking.

Our Take: If it weren’t for the very obvious family chemistry between Rob Lowe and his son John Owen Lowe, we would probably chalk up Unstable as more of a workplace comedy than a contemplation on grief and family. The Lowes, along with veteran comedy writer Victor Fresco, created the series, can’t seem to resist exploring B- and C-plots involving one member of the “office family” interacting with another one, even though what they’re doing has nothing to do with what’s going on with Ellis and Jackson.

It’s understandable, given Fresco’s previous credits — he’s the creator of the criminally underrated workplace comedies Better Off Ted and Santa Clarita Diet, so quirky workplaces are in his wheelhouse. And while we found the characters at the Dragon corporation to be funky and funny, we kept wanting to go back to seeing Ellis and Jackson work through their grief while rebuilding their relationship.

Unlike a show like Shrinking, which you might expect will go away from the grief theme to the “found family” theme as the series goes along, there’s actual family at the center of Unstable, both in a real and a fictional sense, and the scenes where the Lowes interact are when the show is at its best.

The idea that Jackson is actively resisting turning into his dad, mainly because his dad is such an egoist that he can’t help but try to mold his adult son into his image, is a premise that has staying power, even as Ellis and Jackson grow inevitably closer. And, given that John Owen Lowe is following in his father’s footsteps in real life, there is likely some reality mixed into the story. That, and the fact that their real-life relationship translates well onto the screen, makes the Jackson/Ellis story so compelling.

When the show goes into the lives of the other people in the office, like the weak Malcom trying to assert his authority by banning pistachios from Ruby and Luna’s lab, the plots elicit some laughs but mostly shrugs. The burgeoning love triangle among the assertive Ruby, the shy Luna and the torn Jackson should be fun. And as the season goes along, finding out about more about these side characters will help round out the world the show is in. But we’ll keep wanting to come back to Ellis and Jackson during those plots, which speaks to how strong that part of the show is.

Sex and Skin: Besides seeing Rob Lowe’s naked butt, there’s nothing.

Parting Shot: Jackson finds out what Anna meant by the fact that Ellis’ therapist is “missing.”

Sleeper Star: Fred Armisen plays Leslie, the board-appointed therapist, and he’s funny in that small role. Tom Allen and J.T. Parr play a not-very-veiled and very stupid version of the Winklevoss twins, and they’re also funny in their brief scenes.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jackson purposely rents a Smart car, which we didn’t even know was possible. But it leads to the funny line where Ellis says, “Put your car in my car, and we’ll go together.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Even without Rob and John Owen Lowe’s father-son dynamic, Unstable would be an above average workplace sitcom. But they are the main attraction, and their scenes together really make the show fun to watch.

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.