Brothers & Sisters

At last! The time has finally come. Tonight, we’ll re-enter the Walker’s world and see what’s in store for us in Season 2. We’ve been primed with previews and specials and video viewings, and 10 p.m. cannot come soon enough.

While we count the hours and minutes, here’s a discussion topic: What stories are you most looking forward to this year? And what stories, if any, are you dreading?

Last season’s final episode, Matriarchy, set plenty of plots in motion, including Justin’s going to war, Rebecca’s confession that she was not an innocent in the Joe situation, Kevin meeting Jason, Saul being unsettled when an old friend declares he’s come out of the closet, the merging of Walker and McCallister clans, Julia’s depression and Tommy’s escaping from it. Combined with the Holly-Tommy business venture, Sarah and Joe’s split, McCallister’s presidential campaign, and the future arrival of Danny Glover as a love interest for Nora, it’s sounding like a busy year already. And there are sure to be complications that we, and maybe even the writers, don’t know about yet.

I’ll admit that the storyline I’m most anticipating is also the storyline I’m most dreading. It involves two actors who were severely underused last season, and will likely give them an opportunity to prove that they deserve screen time, or prove that less is more. That’s the Tommy and Julia story I’m hoping for/worrying about, and Balthazar Getty and Sarah Jane Morris who are going to have to sell it.

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Last year, Brothers & Sisters fans had to make do with one little official blog, the writers’ effort “Bloggers and Sisters.” And it was okay, but patchy in terms of quantity and quality, sometimes lots of fun, sometimes seeming like an afterthought, like somebody said, “Oh, crap, we forgot to put something on the blog. Just go over there and ramble a little, okay?” (An attitude I would never take on this blog. Um, very often. OK, fine, but they’re getting paid more than me.) It’s also been plagued by some really loopy comments.

Now, we come to season two, and a second official blog has been added, “McCallister and Me,” purporting to tell the story of the schlub who’s been sent by the Senator’s competition to dig dirt against his presidential campaign. The second installment is up now, exposing our blogger to be the camera-phone-guy in the “Kitty and Nora in the wedding shop” scene being shown in previews. I still find this blog really pretty icky. Just entirely forced, and not even a tiny bit as cute as it thinks it is. Has anybody here read it? What do you think? (Plus, just based on the clip in the preview, doesn’t it seem more fun if camera-phone-guy is just some opportunistic jerk who happens to be there with his fiancee?)

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Well, shoot. I really meant to catch Sally Field’s appearance on Good Morning America this a.m., or at least the appearance on Live With Regis and Kelly that came after, and totally missed them. Following a drought of Brothers & Sisters hype, we suddenly seem to be swimming in TV appearances and articles and “Must Sees.” I used to scour Google News reports for B&S mentions, and now I realize I’m way, way behind.

Fortunately, Sally’s GMA segment is available on the show’s site. They talk, of course, about The Speech, and she admits that she didn’t mean to say the G word before the D word, but was flustered by the audience’s response. When asked by Diane Sawyer whether awards shows were an appropriate place for political commentary, she responded that she felt she owed it to the character she plays — a mother waiting for a son to come back from war — to pay tribute to other mothers like her.

There was a clip from the Emmys and a clip from the show and a nice plug for the new season starting, although Diane seemed confused about just which season it was. Wouldn’t it be great if all this PR work really turns into some meaningful ratings come Sunday night? B&S feels like a show on the cusp of being The Next Big Thing. Time to push it over.

_{Photo: ABC News}

That’s how the new ABC show Dirty Sexy Money is described in a TV Guide interview with star Peter Krause — “Brothers & Sisters on crack.” After watching the first episode last night, I’d add “and filled with really unpleasant characters you will be happy to never see again.” But I guess that’s not so catchy.

I thought I’d give the show a watch because it stole a bunch of Brothers & Sisters creative types, including show-runner Greg Berlanti and writer Craig Wright. I wanted to see if I should wish them well, or wish them back. And after an hour of my life I’ll never get back, I’m yelling, “Come back! Come back!” It’s like they gave a show to the obnoxious family from “Game Night,” times 1,000.

I’m a fan of Peter Krause from Sports Night days, and I enjoyed watching him well enough, though I wish his character was a little more masterful in dealing with a family that he knows so well will try to take over his life. Man, if you’re going to do things your own way and keep your own hours, might I just suggest that you try screening your calls?

I did think that Donald Sutherland was fabulous as the patriarch. In an era where we like our rich folk to be blowhard exhibitionists making fools of themselves on reality shows, Sutherland’s Tripp seemed more like the real deal: a guy whose smile and straightforward manner almost but not quite hide the fact that he is Satan.

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It’s here! My DVD! Arrived via mail order from Amazon.com. And it’s all I can do not to just drop my life and sit watching it. But kids need to get picked up from school, and blog entries need to be written, and oh, bother.

But I am taking a certain amount of pleasure in just opening the thing up, running my hands over it, and ooh-ing and aah-ing. In case yours hasn’t come just yet, and you’re into pretty packaging, I thought I’d take some photos of the insides with my crappy camera to give you a little vicarious thrill, anyway. Apologies in advance for my lack of photography skillz.

First, about that cover box there: It’s embossed on the front. The photos are slightly higher and glossier than the white area surrounding them. Which is nice, I guess, and feels cool. But if it added even a penny to the cost of the thing, it wasn’t worth it. Like the Grey’s Anatomy set sitting next to it on the bookshelf is gonna go, “Ooh, embossing! Feels good!”

Here’s what slides out the side of the paper outside box (left) — a paper inside box (right). Instead of lots of plastic boxes, this set uses the paper-fold-out style packaging. The photos are of a kind of puckery, model-pose Sarah and Kitty, and a Nora who looks like she’s saying tensely through her grin, “Cut the pouty poses and smile, dammit!” A photo of smiling Kitty is on the spines of both sides of the inside section and the one spine of the outside box. Guess she’s happy ’cause she got that gig to herself.

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Here are some of my favorite quotes from the interview segments interspersed throughout the retrospective episode “Family Album.” Did I miss some that you loved? Share them in the comments.

“They have Kennedy-esque moments and they also have the Keystone Kops moments.” — Matthew Rhys

“Secrets have a very big effect on people because then you have to renegotiate in your mind the truth.” — Sally Field

“I have a feeling there are other secrets to be discovered and we haven’t learned it all yet. Uh oh.” — Sally Field

“Your feeling about the cast takes the place of your preparation.” — Sally Field

“I feel like I was playing minor league baseball and all of a sudden i got called up to the Yankees.” — Dave Annable

“Who decides what functions and what doesn’t function? I mean, the dynamics in a family are the dynamics in a family.” — Ron Rifkin

“He’s this emotional mess looking for love and for a partner and struggling with committing to it.” — Matthew Rhys, on Kevin

“That one scene, I had to try my best not to start laughing.” Dave Annable, on the family therapy fight in “Family Day”

“It seems that maybe it’s about the war, or it’s about money, or it’s about something topical or immediate, and what you discover by the end of the episode is it’s really not about that, it’s about the relationships.” — Ken Olin

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This “get ready for the second season” episode did a super job of summarizing the major storylines from Season 1 and setting the stage for Season 2. The format was smooth and simple: Scenes from the show interspersed with cast interviews that commented on or in some way related to the Walker action.

The content was sort of informally grouped into various themes, some announced with title cards, some just standing alone. Below, I’ve given a summary for each of these groupings and an informal listing of interview snippets, in order. You can view the final group, “A Look Ahead,” on the YouTube video above, or see the entire episode on ABC’s Full Episode Player.

Opening
The first segment kicks off with Sarah’s speech in “Matriarchy” about family. The clips and interview segments that follow hammer home three things: 1) The wonderfulness of family in general; 2) The wonderfulness of the Walker family in particular; and 3) The degree to which America acknowledges 1) and 2). Talking heads, in order:

• Ken Olin
• Sally Field
• Emily VanCamp
• Rob Lowe
• Dave Annable
• Rachel Griffiths
• Calista Flockhart
• Balthazar Getty
• Patricia Wettig
• Matthew Rhys
• Sarah Jane Morris
• Emily VanCamp
• Sally Field
• Rob Lowe
• Ron Rifkin

The segment ends with the portrait from “Family Portrait” and the episode’s title: “Brothers & Sisters: Family Album.”

Title Card: “Secrets”
The title card comes a little bit in, but “Secrets” is clearly the theme from the very start of this segment, when we see William comin’ on down the stairs. The discussion and clips graze various Walker dysfunctions, including drinking, relationship problems, and political disagreements, but settle mostly on the story of William’s death, the revelation of his affair with Holly, and the changing of the family from a patriarchy to a matriarchy. Talking heads, in order:

• Mark Perry
• Balthazar Getty
• Calista Flockhart
• Ken Olin
• Calista Flockhart
• Mark Perry
• Sally Field
• Mark Perry
• Patricia Wettig
• Mark Perry
• Sally Field
• Dave Annable
• Ron Rifkin
• Sally Field

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Well, if nothing else, new viewers who watch “Family Album” hoping to learn enough to start watching Brothers & Sisters in Season 2 will know one thing for sure: It’s about family. Family! This family, your family, American families, all families, family, family, family! They used that word about, what, 1,325 times? Just in case the title didn’t tip you off.

Putting aside the enjoyability of the special for a moment, let me just ask: Do you buy the apparent premise that the Walkers represent an ideal of family that we all wish we were a part of? Because me? I just don’t know. The Walkers absolutely represent an ideal of family that I want to watch on television every week, because they’re funny and they’re well-spoken and I can enjoy their mess-ups and traumas without having to clean up after them myself. But would I want to have a family that was as up in each other’s business as that? I think it’s possible to have too much there for you.

For those who missed the special (and if you did, get your eyeballs over to the ABC Full Episode Player and watch it RIGHT NOW!), it was essentially made up of clips from the past season interspersed with cast members — plus Ken Olin and new show-runner Mark Perry — talking about the storylines, the characters, and their own behind-the-scenes experiences. At the end, there was one segment of scenes from the new season, with a little description from the principals as to what to expect. And finally, the music video to wrap it all up.

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Tonight, at 10 p.m., a never-before-seen offering on Brothers & Sisters! But not, of course, a new episode — we have to wait one more week for that. Tonight, we get the special “Family Album,” of which ABC promises “This one hour special presents the exposed secrets, hilarious adventures and dramatic stories that made the series a breakout hit last season. Get the exclusive reveal of the casts’ favorite moments, hilarious outtakes and sneak peeks at what’s in store for America’s most loved TV family in Season Two.”

Exposed secrets and hilarious adventures! That’s the show we love.

I’m a sucker for a good clip show, so I’ll be tuned in tonight. I’ll try to have a recap up tomorrow for those who missed it, but c’mon … who’s going to miss it? We’ve been waiting a long time for new content here.

If you need something to whet your appetite and help you make it through the long hours until tonight’s show, there are a couple of new goodies on the ABC show site. One is a full-length video of the song “Pictures of You,” which includes pictures of all the Walkers this time, not like the Kevin-free shorter promo, as well as pictures of The Last Goodnight, the group that sings the song.

There are pictures from Season 1 that weren’t in the shorter version, including the Rebecca-Joe kiss, the Nora-Holly food fight, and the Nora-Kevin pelting with dinner roll. There are also, if I’m not mistaken, some pictures of Season 2 that we haven’t seen in any prior clip compilation, including a couple of Kevin-Jason moments, Rebecca carrying a (rather small) birthday cake for Cooper, and Nora and Holly at William’s grave — laying down flowers, not throwing them at each other, alas. They could at least throw a cake at that old SOB’s tombstone.

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They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Let’s hope that’s true.

In reading around the Web about Sally Field’s Emmy speech, which Fox censors cut away from when she uttered an expletive in the middle of an anti-war sentiment, an awful lot of people are using the occasion to declare that I WILL NEVER WATCH THIS SHOW AGAIN!

And most of the time, I have trouble believing that any of them ever watched the show in the first place. Viewers so offended by taking the Lord’s name in vain, or by words against war, wouldn’t find Brothers & Sisters to be a comfortable fit in the first place, would they? Even the Republican Walker has expressed dismay about the war, and Kevin’s romances wouldn’t play well for the religious conservative crowd, either.

But there are elements of the show that might draw in a more traditional viewership. Sally Field was probably, before now, one of them. There’s certainly a segment of the audience that has been uncomfortable with Kevin’s storylines. In a recent interview, Rachel Griffiths says, “I’ve had older women come up to me: ‘Could you tell your writers I can’t deal with those gays kissing all the time!’” There have been similar opinions expressed on the ABC message boards and the comments on the writers’ blog Bloggers and Sisters.

Griffiths said she told those viewers that they just have to get with the times, and that’s the right idea. Anyone who’s uncomfortable with the show’s subject matter, or the actors’ personal views and conduct, is of course free to stay away. At the same time, for a show that was just starting to bloom in the ratings at the end of last season, it’s not a great time to lose a chunk of your audience. Maybe people who had avoided the show in the past will tune in because they thought Sally’s speech was right-on, brave, or wrongfully censored. Let’s hope they stay around.

Ideally, there would be enough to reward any audience member to make staying through parts you don’t personally care for worthwhile. And ideally, an actor’s performance as a character would be so compelling as to make you not care whether you respect that actor as a person or not. It would be good for the series’ long-term health to be able to appeal to a spectrum of audience members, and not just ones whose political and religious views meet a litmus test.

The really ironic thing about all this is that the speech Sally Field gave was pure Nora Walker. Anybody who’s watched Brothers & Sisters and enjoyed that character, but can’t stand seeing the actress yell, “Hurry up! Be quiet! I have something to say!” has clearly not been paying attention. Nora’s a woman who speaks her mind and doesn’t care if you like it or not, even if you are one of her beloved children. To viewers who want to flee the show now, she’d probably say, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, sweetie!”

Photo: ABC.com

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Sally Field, Emmy speech

How much do you want to know about next season? If you can’t wait and must know now, click the link below for some spoiler reports. If you prefer to be innocent, unknowing and surprised, look away! Cover your eyes and ears and say, “La la la! I can’t hear you!”

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All the attention this week has been on Sally Field and her Best Actress Emmy, but the ensemble of Walker Family actors did actually receive a group award as well: A Tubey Award of Questionable Cachet for “Best Ensemble Drunkenness” from Television Without Pity. As Coach Baron writes tribute:

“You’d think that after the perpetually besodden Justin went into rehab, the amount of alcohol consumed on Brothers And Sisters by his family, the Walkers, would have significantly diminished. Not so, as siblings Sarah, Tommy, Kitty, and Kevin, along with Uncle Saul and mom Nora, combined to pick up the slack, thereby ensuring that the vineyards of California wouldn’t have to cut their employees’ pension plans. All these drunken scenes might have tested the actors’ ability to act half-to-full in the bag, but they rose to the challenge, to which we at TWoP answer: Kudosszzzhh!”

Forget the vineyards of California — there’s a vineyard in the family this season! From what I hear of the Season One DVD set, which was released on Monday but hasn’t yet reached my mailbox, there’s an alcohol-swilling montage among the extras. How did they find room for anything else?

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Five questions from “Family Portrait” still rattling around in my brain:

1. Who thought taking that picture was a good idea in the first place? So, what, it’s okay to take it, but not to hang it? How come none of those brothers and sisters who objected to hanging a picture without Kitty didn’t mind posing without her? True, she was unavailable, but other families have dealt with situations like that by, for example, holding a photo or other object to represent a missing member. The way things are going these days, they could probably have had her Photoshopped in. It seems kind of un-family-like if they’re only uncomfortable with it now that Kitty’s moved back.

2. Did Tommy miss out on the sarcasm gene somehow? There are probably some examples of him being snarky like his sibs, but he’s also the only one who regularly says exactly what’s on his mind, without game-playing, passive aggression, or hedging. It’s kind of refreshing, actually. At least you know where you stand.

3. When the doctor mentioned that not many patients had so many people in the waiting room, are we sure that was a compliment? The way Tommy and Justin came to blows, maybe not so much. Perhaps the doctor was edging toward saying, “There’s a limit on visitors, y’know.”

4. Was the Kevin/Saul conversation foreshadowing? I’m not sure the creators knew Saul was going to be gay this early in the season, but the scene between Kevin and Saul, where they both lament being Nora’s go-to guys, sure lays some good groundwork.

5. Was Sarah wrong to snap at Kitty? Maybe, technically, because Kitty was right and could have helped her help Paige — but man, I really felt for Sarah in this one. Bad enough she can’t talk to her husband about the thing that is making her work life hell, but then to have someone who spends very little time with her children be the one to point out a problem she hadn’t noticed … heck, I’d have snapped at Kitty, too. And hung up that picture without her in it right in the middle of my living room.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Family Portrait, commentary

I still owe you all five questions about “Family Portrait,” and we’ll get to that tomorrow. For today, one more post about the Emmys, because it was an exciting night for Brothers & Sisters, you know?

1. Did Sally Field know Fox censored her? Not until she got backstage, according to reports. At which point she said, basically, oh well. Then admitted she probably shouldn’t have said quite the word she did. Then lamented not saying more bad words. Sounding more and more like Nora every minute.

2. Did Sally censor Fox, too? When she was onstage presenting with Patrick Dempsey, it looked like there was supposed to be some cutesy banter between the two of them, and she cut it short. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, granted, so distracted was I by their mutual adorableness. But it seemed that maybe she just dispensed with the scripted prattle and moved on. To which I say, “Yay!”

3. Am I the only one who wondered, “Who is Sarah Caplan?” I’m clearly displaying an area of Brothers & Sisters ignorance here, and am duly ashamed. But when Sally Field thanked “the mother of the show, the real mother of the show, Sarah Caplan,” I had no idea who she was talking about. According to IMDb, she’s the co-executive producer of the show, and according to Barnes & Noble, she does the DVD audio commentary for the “Matriarchy” episode along with Ken Olin and Balthazar Getty. So I guess I’ll be getting to know her better.

4. Why do people get so outraged about what celebrities say? Personally, I’m not a fan of stars using acceptance speeches as political platforms, although at least Sally Field’s speech was consistent with the character she plays and against wars general and not specific. I also think she could have well made that point without the expletive. But the heat of the complaints I’m seeing in comments around the Web seems all out of proportion to what she actually said, and way more offensive. Why, for example, would a bunch of people who have likely never read this blog before stop by to say hateful things about Sally Field in my comments? Folks, I hate to tell you, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read this blog, either.

5. So, if mothers ruled the world, would there really be no more wars? If those mothers were like Nora Walker, I guess mankind would be too busy getting drunk and squabbling to wage formal warfare. But I don’t know. Mothers can be loving and nurturing, but we can also be fierce. It’ll be peaceful enough until your kid says something that hurts my kid’s feelings, and then, I am bringing my army down on you, sister.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Sally Field, Emmy speech

With all the buzz around Sally Field’s Emmy win and controversial speech, let it also be noted that Rachel Griffiths was at the ceremony, too, and looking fabulous.

At least she was during Fox’s red-carpet show, which is about the only time I saw her. She didn’t present an award (as Sally did, with Patrick Dempsey) or get singled out by Ryan Seacrest (as Sally did, as he awkwardly summed up her career with “from Gidget to the Flying Nun to Brothers & Sisters.“)

And sadly, she didn’t win either. The victor in the Supporting Actress in a Drama Series was Katherine Heigl (that’s hie-gull, and don’t forget it), who would not even have been my choice from nominees for that show.

But on the red carpet, with the evening ahead, she took the interviewer’s questions in stride and seemed ready to have a pretty good time. She didn’t give much for her own prospects of winning, but thought that “Sally’s got a really good chance.” She talked about how excited she was about the show going back on the air, and that there’s growing support for Brothers & Sisters, judging by the Gelson’s scale — “how many women at Gelson’s stop me and say they like the show.” She said that her dress that makes her feel “naughty,” and her huge diamond-crusted bracelet (left) made her feel that she needed her own SWAT team. And she remarked that both she and Sally felt their nominations represent the hard work of the whole ensemble. “A year ago, naysayers said our show would be the first big expensive flop, but we’re still here and our audience is still growing.”

With luck, next year that whole ensemble will be at the Emmys, for acting awards and a Best Drama nod.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Rachel Griffiths, Sally Field, Emmy awards