Brothers & Sisters

There’s a cute little item in the Los Angeles Times blog about the writer’s strike regarding two Brothers & Sisters stalwarts. According to the post, titled “He’s a Writer First” and filed at 9:53 a.m., Jon Robin Baitz was among those hitting the New York picket lines this morning, marching in front of Rockefeller Center. Although he’s a producer as well as a writer, he is, as the title suggests, “a writer first.”

Joining him on the picket line was Uncle Saul himself, Ron Rifkin, demonstrating solidarity between actors and writers. “There’s nothing for actors to do if we don’t have writers,” Rifkin is quoted as saying, and if he didn’t know that before, he sure must have learned it last season when the writers couldn’t seem to figure out how to write for his character.

My favorite quote from the post, though, is this one from Baitz about the inevitability of compromise: “I think we will face some very bad days and pernicious scheming, but at the end of the day, there’s no getting around it.” Very bad days and pernicious scheming? Sounds like a good Brothers & Sisters plot. I’m thinking Holly must be involved somewhere.

According to the post, the show is now shooting its 10th episode and has a script for the 11th (the one that’s supposed to feature the return of the Reverend Boyfriend.) The Bloggers & Sisters writer’s blog, which we presumably won’t be hearing from for a while, has one last missive discussing the rush to complete that final script (”a classic B&S blend of the funny and the emotionally true, set to more music than is common in these parts”) and the feelings of gloom and doom over the strike (”the last couple of weeks in these offices have been like a Hollywood version of the Cuban missile crisis — as much as entertainment industry labor strife can be likened to the threat of nuclear extinction”).

Signed “Love, the Brothers & Sisters Writers,” the post thanks fans for loving the show, and urges us to talk amongst ourselves in the meantime. I don’t know that I want to talk amongst the regular commenters on Bloggers & Sisters, because some of them seem a little unhinged. But I hope we can all keep talking here, too.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, writer’s strike, Jon Robin Baitz, Ron Rifkin