Netflix's 'Unstable' Is the Anti-Nepo Baby Nepo Baby Comedy

By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 15, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 15, 2024 |

Did you know that Netflix gave Unstable a second season? Did you even know it had a first? I thought shows that don’t leave a significant cultural imprint in their week-long spotlight before being replaced by the next Netflix Algorithm Assembly Line product didn’t have a chance at renewal. Yet here we are: The show starring Rob Lowe and his son John Owen Lowe, who also created it along with Better Off Ted’s Victor Fresco, got another shot at quickly fading from the Netflix top ten and living on in the dustbin of obscurity.

Is this Netflix’s way of making amends to Victor Fresco for canceling Santa Clarita Diet? By subjecting us to not one, but two Lowe family members for two seasons?

It’s not that Unstable is bad. In fact, it’s fitfully amusing, goes down easy, and fills the time in what seems to be a late mid-August content void. It’s the kind of show you watch because you’ve run out of shows to watch, which is exactly how I ended up binging the second season.

What’s it about? Like the first season, it feels a bit like John Owen Lowe working out his issues with being the son of a famous person. Rob Lowe plays Ellis Dragon, a genius billionaire who owns a bioengineering firm. His son, Jackson Dragon, tries to pursue a career elsewhere but eventually gets pulled into the family business, where he has to live in his father’s shadow. John Owen Lowe - who’s also a writer on this series and his father’s other show, 9-1-1: Lone Star - probably has plenty of life experience to draw from.

Basically, Unstable is a comedy about the downsides of being a nepo baby. Or it would be if it were more substantive. But it’s not, and that’s to the comedy’s credit. It’s not interested in social commentary; it’s mostly interested in making jokes, and they work. Sometimes. And sometimes, they don’t. The cast is mostly decent (“mostly” because Fred Armisen is also in it), although they all have to live in Rob Lowe’s shadow.

The thing about Rob Lowe is that he actually is a very gifted sitcom comedian. Here, he’s an eccentric version of his Chris Traeger character from Parks and Recreation (Lowe was also very good in The Grinder), while Fleabag’s Sian Clifford basically plays Portia de Rossi’s character from Better Off Ted. It’s meant to be an ensemble comedy, but Rob Lowe steals it, even from his own son, which is kind of the premise of the sitcom. No matter how much Rob Lowe tries to elevate his own kid, he keeps getting in the way.

It’s funny on multiple levels, but not that funny, and the second season in particular feels a little more rushed than the first, like a comedy written for Rob Lowe between his more important projects. And that’s OK. It is what it is, and what it is is pleasant, intermittently funny, and a little bit charming - the perfect comedy to watch when there’s nothing better on.