Rob Lowe: He’s an Actor Playing an Actor Playing a Lawyer … and a Priest

Rob Lowe is hot — a hot TV property, that is.

He’s got two shows coming up, a Fox comedy and an NBC drama, playing an actor playing a lawyer, who tries to actually be a lawyer, and a possibly-Catholic priest.

This fall, Lowe (“The West Wing,” “Parks and Rec”) stars in “The Grinder,” a comedy (the title for which is uncomfortably close to a gay dating app) set to air on Tuesdays on Fox (no premiere date yet). Lowe showed off his drama chops on NBC’s “The West Wing” and NatGeo Channel’s “Killing Kennedy,” but fans of NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” know that he’s also a top-notch comic actor.

He’s in fine form on Fox playing actor Dan Sanderson, whose hit legal drama “The Grinder” just ended. At loose ends in his life, Dean returns to his hometown of Boise, Idaho, to visit his father (William Devane) and his brother, Stewart (Fred Savage), a real attorney, husband and father of two teens. It doesn’t help that Dean also once dated Stewart’s adoring wife (Mary Elizabeth Ellis).

As Dean takes it into his head that playing a lawyer on TV qualifies him to help tongue-tied Stewart with his cases, tensions boil over — until Dean shows that his skills really do have a use.

Here’s a look at the trailer (there’s no objectionable content in the pilot, aside from a non-graphic references to Dean’s previous sexual relationship with his sister-in-law):

I’m the worst audience for sitcoms, having sat stone-faced through more pilots and episodes of hit shows that I can count. Honestly, I’ve laughed out loud at exactly one other network comedy pilot in the last decade. But both myself and my pilot-watching companion, actor Kaiser Johnson, laughed a lot during “The Grinder,” and I had to share this rare occurrence with Lowe on Twitter.

Thank you @RobLowe for #TheGrinder — I haven’t laughed at a network-TV pilot since #Community.

— Kate O’Hare Writes (@KateOH) June 19, 2015

And Lowe replied quickly …

Now THAT’S a compliment! https://t.co/GCqLdbybUY — Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) June 19, 2015

Barring some unforeseen situation, “The Grinder” will be on Fox’s fall schedule, but that’s not the only Lowe project waiting to come on the air. And in this one, he’s not a faux officer of the court, he’s a man of the cloth. (story continues on page 2)