Brothers & Sisters

Every so often I pop by the Brothers & Sisters store on ABC.com to see if there are any new goodies for Walker-philes. There doesn’t seem to be anything new since Kitty’s engagement ring was added, and that’s got me thinking about what should be there and isn’t.

What bit of Walker-abilia would you like to see sold? Here is my personal list of Top Ten Things that should be added to the product line immediately:

10. Wine. There’s bottles pictured in the store, but they’re just props. Shouldn’t be.

9. Walker Landing corkscrew.

8. Ojai Foods shirts and mugs. Why should Walker Landing get all the promo?

7. Leis. You never know when a working mom is going to need some.

6. Did I mention wine?

5. Holly Harper voodoo doll. Oh, sure, she’s being nice now, but you know pretty soon you’re going to want to stick pins in her again.

4. A knock-off of Kitty’s wedding dress.

3. McCallister for President bumper stickers and buttons.

2. Seriously, get some little vineyard somewhere to slap a Walker Landing label on a bottle of something.

1. Brothers & Sisters edition Trivial Pursuit.

Speaking of that wedding dress, I wonder why Brothers & Sisters isn’t included in the “as seen on” store anymore? You used to be able to score Walker-like apparel there, or at least browse through Nora’s housewares. But now, though you can still buy things you saw on Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Dancing with the Stars, ABC soaps, The View, Boston Legal, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Lost — who knew they had mascara and hairspray on that island? — and Jimmy Kimmel Live, what you see at the Walkers’ stays with the Walkers.

Except the wine. We totally should get the wine.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC

The big awards news this week has been the Golden Globes, or the lack thereof. But two other awards have seen some action, too, with the People’s Choice Award winners being named on Tuesday, and the Writer’s Guild of America award nominations announced today.

So how did Brothers & Sisters fare in this latest round of trophying?

Remember last year, when the series got no awards love?

Kinda like that.

The People’s Choice Awards ceremony got cancelled for the same reason the Golden Globes did, but the winners were announced in a pre-taped special hosted by Queen Latifah which, apparently, nobody watched. Brothers & Sisters was nominated for exactly one award: Favorite Female TV Star, for which the ever-popular Sally Field vied against Jennifer Love Hewitt and the apparently more ever-popular Katherine Heigl, who won and got to use her pre-recorded speech.

At least Brothers & Sisters was represented with a nomination there, though. At the WGA Awards? Not even that. No nomination for Drama Series — those went to Dexter, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, The Sopranos, and The Wire — and no nomination for Episodic Drama, which honors single episodes from drama shows — the chosen for that honor are “Final Grades” from The Wire, “The Second Coming” from The Sopranos, “The Round File” from The Closer, “Flashes Before Your Eyes” from Lost, “The Hobo Code” from Mad Men, and “The Dark Defender” from Dexter.

Too bad the Writer’s Guild doesn’t have any sort of category that Sally Field could fit in. The show might have at least scored a nomination.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, awards, People’s Choice, Writer’s Guild

The scaled-down Golden Globes that I mentioned on Monday have been scaled down even further, to a mere 9 p.m. press conference. One of the ideas NBC and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association proposed doing but have apparently decided against is a news program on the history of the ceremony and memorable moments.

That doesn’t mean we can’t take our own walk down Golden Globe memory lane, stopping at those years in which the Walkers and their extended circle of family and friends have been nominated for or taken home the treasured statues. It’s a pretty impressive legacy, don’t you think?

1978

• Sally Field nominated as Best Actress, Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, for Smokey and the Bandit

1979

• Chevy Chase nominated as Best Motion Picture Acting Debut, Male, and Best Actor, Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, both for Foul Play

1980

• Sally Field won as Best Actress, Motion Picture Drama, for Norma Rae
• Treat Williams nominated as New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture, Male, for Hair

1982

• Sally Field nominated as Best Actress, Motion Picture Drama, for Absence of Malice
• Treat Williams nominated as Best Actor, Motion Picture Drama, for Prince of the City

1983

• Sally Field nominated as Best Actress, Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, for Kiss Me Goodbye

1984

• Rob Lowe nominated as Best Supporting Actor, TV Series, Miniseries or Movie, for Thursday’s Child

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“The Feast of the Epiphany,” the new Brothers & Sisters episode playing this Sunday with 100 percent less Golden Globe competition, has a new promo up on YouTube, and reproduced below. It looks like something that might have aired this past Sunday night, when I was purposely not watching Cashmere Mafia.

The quality’s not great, but it’s good enough that you can hear … wait, did I just hear Julia say that she slept with someone? That’s a good way of twisting her reaction to Tommy’s infidelity, I guess — infidelity all around! No harm, then! The infidelities cancel out! Let’s go right back to the way things were. Not sure it really works that way, but it’s an angle on the situation I didn’t expect. I hope Sarah Jane Morris was right about them staying together, and that this isn’t just a way to grease the rails for her exit.

(And I’ll say this very quietly, because I know most of y’all think this is a stupid idea, but … this might also be a good way to slip in there with something about Nora having cheated once, too, in case they want to do that thing with Justin not being a Walker. Not that they will. Surely not!)

Anyway, enjoy the small slice of Walker chaos below, and look forward to a large helping on Sunday night. It will have to be enough to fill us for a while, because the following Sunday, January 20? Re-run again. Way to milk those last few pre-strike episodes, ABC! Scott mentions in a comment on an earlier post that the episodes are being saved for sweeps, and I guess that’s a nice vote of confidence. Except … I want my show back now! Surely we’ve learned from Jason and Julia how wrong things can go when people stay away too long.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Julia, Sarah Jane Morris, promos

In case you were worrying about what to watch next Sunday night, with a new episode of Brothers & Sisters scheduled to go up against the last hour of the Golden Globes awards ceremony, your DVR just got a break — according to Deadline Hollywood, NBC has officially cancelled the Globes telecast due to the fact that with the writers picketing it, no stars will show up.

Instead of a three-hour drunken party that you watch in the hopes of seeing someone giving a really funny speech, or a really tipsy one, or being caught in the restroom and missing their speech altogether, the Globes will now be nothin’ but a press event — but presumably one SAG members can show up at, since it won’t be on TV. Stars will still be able to doll up and show off their dresses and tuxes for photographers on the red carpet, and go to parties for their respective shows and films. The awards, though, will be announced in a room without the nominees present, with winners allowed to swing by a table later, snag their trophies, and be mobbed by press.

And I guess it’s sad and all, the ruining of tradition, the robbing of a night of glory for hard-working actors and actresses. I’m looking on the bright side, though, and considering it to be revenge for the failure of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to nominate Brothers & Sisters for best show, and most of its cast for best anything. Ha! Leave the Walkers out of a party with lots of liquor, and we will shut your party down!

Sure, Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths won’t get their night to shine, but they’ll have other chances. Sally has the SAG Awards up ahead, and they have a WGA waiver allowing them to be televised picket-free. As for Rachel … well, if this cancellation saves her from an unfortunate hair moment like the one pictured above, from her 2002 Golden Globe win as supporting actress for Six Feet Under, it will be a blessing right there.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Golden Globes, NBC, writer’s strike

Tonight, once again, is a Sunday night without Our Show. Brothers & Sisters was originally supposed to have returned on this night, January 6, but ABC decided to replace it — not with a holiday special this time, or a beloved movie classic, but with a trashy-sounding new soap opera, Cashmere Mafia, which has been deemed deserving of the ratings heat that comes with following the last pre-strike Desperate Housewives.

I can’t decide if this is good news — that the network thinks B&S is strong enough to do well without the DH push in its remaining three weeks of new shows — or bad news — that the network couldn’t care less how B&S does, and plans to burn the last three when nobody’s watching. I’ll try to imagine it’s the former, and remember that, a few weeks down the road, we’ll just be glad that we have one more episode to watch.

If you’re missing the Walkers, here are a few YouTube videos that might help a little. The first is an interview with Sarah Jane Morris, from November, in which she mentions that as far as she knows, Julia and Tommy will stay together. The segment is longer than all of Julia’s Brothers & Sisters scenes put together, and you may want to knock the heads of the hosts together for asking such dumb questions, but it’s a little Walker fix, nonetheless.

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I’ve been reading reaction around the Web to Jon Robin Baitz’s Huffington Post blogs on his ouster from the everyday running of Brothers & Sisters, and some speculation on how it might affect the show’s storylines. Particularly of interest have been the ongoing discussion in the Television Without Pity forums, and a long article on the AfterElton site.

There seems to be some consensus among posters and commenters that Sally Field is too prominent for age-ism to force Nora’s stories to the sidelines, and that Kevin is too much a part of the ensemble to have his love life given short shrift. What people tend to settle on is a conclusion that, with Baitz’s departure around episode 3, Uncle Saul’s coming-out story has been pushed to the back burner.

This Saul development, introduced in last year’s “Matriarchy,” certainly has been proceeding at a slower pace than other plots, and that can make it seem neglected. Really, though, it’s simply the only plot positioned in “Matriarchy” that hasn’t been dispatched with undue haste. Could be that’s actually a good thing.

Good for Ron Rifkin, anyway, because it gives him a reason to be around. Saul has always been a back-burner character that the writers can’t seem to find anything to do with. I feel like he’s been closer to the front-burner this season, with more consistency to his character. This isn’t a guy who would leap out of the closet after decades of denial. Most episodes this season have had small, important developments on the Saul front. There’s a definite feeling that, with him having made a revelation to Nora, and hearing from Holly that we can’t help who we love, he may be building to an announcement. I don’t think you could argue that the plot has been dropped.

Whereas everything else from Matriarchy? History. Justin’s gone to war, come back, recovered. Rebecca’s moved home. Kitty’s married. Sarah’s divorced. Kevin’s ditched Jason for Scotty. Julia’s run away and come back, apparently over her depression. Presumably, the damage done by the tent and the marauding McCallisters has been all filled in, too.

Really, if anybody’s been sidelined this season, I’d have to say it was Rebecca — the youngest of the brothers and sisters, and presumably the one who would have been pushed most to the forefront if the youth movement that Baitz seems to allege was really afoot. At the end of last season, she was messed up and dangerous, but for most of this one, she’s been a meek little helper with bangs. By “Holy Matrimony!” she was starting to get her spirit back. But if the network was really pushing for a younger demo, they’d have had her and Justin sharing a beach house with Lena and making friends with surf bunnies by now.

Whoops, don’t want to give ABC any ideas.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Jon Robin Baitz, Ron Rifkin

There have been some good comments around here in the last few days, on Jon Robin Baitz’s blog meltdown and the new show Eli Stone, for example, and I’d like to thank those of you who have taken the time to share your opinion. Even though I don’t respond to comments very often, I do read them and appreciate them. Keep ‘em coming!

Er, that is, keep ‘em coming, but don’t be surprised if they don’t appear as soon as you press the “submit comment” button. The spam filter on this blog has been hyperactive lately, and is snapping up every comment made, whether it’s spam-worthy or genuine, and consigning it to the dungeon. Bad spam filter!

I have been reaching into the cesspool of spam comments two or three times a day to retrieve the worthwhile offerings, so rest assured that your comments will eventually show up. I’d say that looking through the spam that’s deservedly caught is an eye-opening experience, but what I really feel like doing after seeing what gets splattered up against my site is closing my eyes, hard, and never opening them again. And washing out my brain, vigorously.

Please, then, if you have something to say that does not involve pornography, post a comment so that there will be worthwhile things for me to read in there. And if you really are looking for cheap drugs, easy credit, naked pictures of Angelina Jolie, or, to directly quote one item, “Kim Possible cartoon sex,” you’re out of luck, I’m deleting all that stuff as fast as I possibly can.

Things may not be working out for Jason and Kevin, but the actor who plays the McCallister brother is having better luck in real life. According to news reports, Eric Winter got engaged to his girlfriend of two years, Roselyn Sanchez, over the holidays while vacationing on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

Sanchez plays a character named Elena Delgado on Without a Trace, a show I have watched only a time or two, and she is one of the many pretty actors there I would not have recognized. They do make a cute couple though, don’t they? Perhaps not as cute as Kevin and Jason, but cute nonetheless.

One annoyance with the news items I’m seeing on this is that they describe the actor thus: “Winter has appeared in a variety of TV shows, including Days of Our Lives.” And sure, I guess he hasn’t been on Brothers and Sisters that much, but when one of our own is in the dating and marrying news, it’d be nice for the show to at least get a little mention.

According to a quick look on IMDb, this is the second marriage to a fellow performer for both Winter and Sanchez. Winter was married to Allison Ford from 2001-2004, and Sanchez was married to Gary Stretch from 1998-2001. Here’s hoping the second time’s the charm for both of them. Too bad Without a Trace is on CBS instead of ABC, because we could have plotted out a little crossover episode in which Elena and her colleagues track down Jason on his remote Malaysian mission and reconstruct the events that led to him not calling Kevin.

No date has yet been set for the nuptials, or for Jason’s B&S homecoming either, for that matter.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Eric Winter, Roselyn Sanchez

Well, if there was any lingering doubt that the TV Guide blind item I mentioned in my earlier entry about Jon Robin Baitz’s Huffington Post rant was truly referring to the Brothers & Sisters creator, that has been put to rest — and a stake driven through its heart — by the second part of “Leaving Los Angeles.”

Baitz quotes the entire blind item in this installment of his exit saga, and admits it’s about him (only disputing the use of the word “fired,” when in fact he was “ousted”). He also deploys quite a wide array of verbal artillery to blast the item’s author, Michael Ausiello. I’m not sure about the wisdom of starting feuds with gossip columnists, but Baitz makes it pretty clear that he’s not going to play by Hollywood rules anymore, and, okay, good luck with that.

The post is raw and angry and full of hurt feelings and righteous indignation and general pissiness, toward show and network personnel in particular and Los Angeles in general. Reading it is kind of like being on the phone with a friend who rails endlessly against slights inflicted in the workplace, and although you keep up the sympathetic “uh-huh?” noises, at some point you begin to think, disloyally, that maybe those co-workers have a point. It is a perfect illustration of the thrill and the danger of blogging: You can write and publish things now in the heat of annoyance that, in slower times with more editors, would never see the light of day. I’d check Baitz’s post out quick, because if he’s got any sense it’ll be softened soon.

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