Brothers & Sisters

Okay, I know, it’s really the actress who plays Kitty, Calista Flockhart, hanging at the film festival with boyfriend Harrison Ford, who has some small art film about a crystal skull debuting there. (They’re pictured above with, from left, Mellody Hobson, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, and Shia LaBeouf.)

Still, because my head is stuck in Walker-ville, it’s fun to see this shot of her with the movie elite. And to imagine the kind of trouble Kitty and her siblings could get into at a bash like this.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Calista Flockhart, Harrison Ford

No, don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for those two crazy kids to split up. But they both have a little relationship baggage in their pasts to be inspected. The series of check-ups of Kitty and family continues with a look at the loves of the past.

Jonathan
Kitty’s first fiance was also a control freak, although for my money not as charming a one as Robert. He proposed by dropping a ring in a martini glass, and Kitty initially accepted, but an affair with her co-worker Warren got in the way. Prognosis: It’s unlikely we’ll ever see Jonathan again, but … seems like maybe he and Graham might travel in the same big-money circles. If Sarah happened to run into her old almost-brother-in-law, how crazy do you think it would drive Kitty if her old beau dated her sister?

Courtney
Robert’s first wife left him for his chief-of-staff, and claimed that he had an affair with the nanny. Kitty successfully called her bluff about that when Courtney was planning to take it to the talk shows, but it’s clear there’s still a lot of bitterness over the years she gave to Robert’s political career. Prognosis: Courtney will always be part of Robert and Kitty’s life because of Sophie and Jack, but I’ll be just as glad if we never actually see her again. Though I like Marin Hinkle, the character we saw in the one episode she’s had was just unpleasantly frosty. If she does recur, it would have to be something to do with a kid-related crisis.

Warren
Kitty’s liberal counterpart on her political talk show was a goofy departure from serious Jonathan, and the diversion she needed to get rid of that guy. Not really serious relationship material, though, was he? They first slept together on the night Kitty found out about Holly, and tried to make a go of things after Kitty split with Jonathan. But Warren was already distracted by young blond bubblehead Amber, and that cut the Kitty activity short. Prognosis: Warren’s likely gone with the TV show plotline, but he was a lot of fun, wasn’t he? Got on awfully well with Nora, too. If I thought he had enough depth to go for an older woman instead of a younger one, I’d say there might be something there. How crazy do you think it would drive Kitty if her old beau dated her mother?

The Nanny
Do we even have a name for the girl who got the blame for the McCallister break-up, even if she had nothing actually to do with it? She’s done an awfully good job of disappearing, particularly considering that these days, she could probably have made a pretty penny selling her story to the tabloids. Prognosis: You know, unless Kitty completely ditches her career, she and Robert are likely to be needing some childcare assistance in the near future. Good help’s hard to find.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Kitty, Robert

Continuing on in a series of posts on the characters of Brothers & Sisters — where they’ve been, where they’re at, and where we’d like them to go — let’s have a visit with Kitty.

Origins: Kitty was the prodigal daughter returned in the opening episode, greeted with enthusiasm by her soon-to-be-dead dad and reserve by her still-mad mom. She was in town to consider a job as a TV pundit, but boyfriend Jonathan wanted her to chuck all that, settle down, and make Republican babies.

Progress: She did chuck that job soon enough, but Jonathan sooner. She made her peace with Mom and had a little fling with her TV show colleague, but before long the love of her life turned up in the person of Senator Robert McCallister, candidate for president. She started out as his Communications Director, but became in time his fiancee and then, with a wedding in Season 2, Mrs. Senator.

Current Status: With the success of Robert’s presidential campaign looking doubtful, she may soon be in a position to … settle down and make Republican babies.

Concerns: I can’t see much future in a storyline that sends Robert and Kitty to Washington as either president and first lady or vice president and … second lady? But it’s hard to think of another storyline for the couple that wouldn’t be kind of been-there, done-that. Last season saw getting-pregnant and infertility drama and a birth with complications. We’d certainly see more of a Kitty pregnancy than we did of Julia’s, and there could be amusement in that. But is this career woman suddenly going to be all about the babies?

Prognosis: It seems pretty likely that there’s a baby in the future for Kitty. And I’m not sorry to see the campaign go. But I hope some thought will be given to keeping up her political and professional life. Because otherwise, it just seems like Jonathan has won.

Second Opinions: Isilda would like to see Kitty divorce her husband and get back to the family. What do you see in the future for Kitty? Share your thoughts on this character in the comments.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Kitty, Calista Flockhart

You may not be able to score a fiance as handsome as Rob Lowe, and the pricetag for that Monique Lhuillier dress Kitty wore may be too steep for your budget. But for just $75, you can make sure your beau presents you with Kitty’s engagement ring, or a lovely knocked-off version thereof (’cause, like, Kitty’s still wearing hers).

The bauble is for sale in the ABC store, right next to a variety of Walker Landing picnic baskets and totes and Ts. Do they have a gift shop at Walker Landing, by the way? A little spot where, on the way out after, say, a high-powered political wedding, you could score a couple of wine glasses and a coffee mug? Really, Holly should get on that.

Back to Kitty’s ring, ABC-style. It boasts a center stone that is nearly one carat of cubic zirconia, with baguettes on each side and a lustrous rhodium/platinum plated band. I’m guessing Kitty’s version had diamonds, but maybe she’d better check. I think Robert said something about it being a family heirloom, but you know how much you can trust politicians. They’ll even pretend to want children if it gets your vote.

The ABC store seems to be making a small business of selling imitation engagement rings and wedding bands. If Kitty’s doesn’t suit you, you can also shop for Nicole’s Wedding Band from What About Brian; Carly’s Engagement Ring and Wedding Band from General Hospital; and a rose ring inspired by Wilhelmina’s engagement ring on Ugly Betty.

The authenticity of these replicas may be a “buyer beware” affair, though, since they’re selling something called Elizabeth’s Three Stone Ring in the General Hospital store that looks to me to be exactly the same as what they’re calling Kitty’s engagement ring. Is Robert two-timing our girl, handing out lookalike rings all around? Where’s that annoying muckraking blogger when you need him?

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, ABC store

I’ve been dreading the possibility of a protracted wedding work-up for Robert and Kitty — a few mini-break-ups and -make-ups, a serious challenge somewhere along the way, moodiness and broodiness and misunderstandings. Nobody just gets married on TV, right? There have to be obstacles.

In this case, though, maybe they’re saving the obstacles for after. TVGuide.com’s latest Ausiello Report vodcast reports that the McCallister-Walker nuptials will take place next month, not next year or next season.

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Kind words about the sisters and their mom, from around the Web:

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, in an article on “women who make TV worth watching,” sites Sally Field’s performance on Brothers & Sisters: “This enjoyable family drama was supposed to be a comeback vehicle for Calista Flockhart, but Field is one of the main reasons to tune in — she is the most magnetic performer in this sprawling cast. As the head of the Walker family, Field has given a brave, deeply appealing heart to widow Nora Walker, whose journey from doting mom and worried widow to independent woman has been poignant and even hilarious at times.”

Flockhart gets more attention on the Yale set of the new Indiana Jones movie, where she’s hanging out with boyfriend Harrison Ford. According to a report in the New Haven Register, “Ford and girlfriend Calista Flockhart … received positive reviews Wednesday evening as they ventured downtown. Accompanied by a boy, likely Flockhart’s son, they had dinner at Barcelona on Temple Street and then stopped for ice cream at Tasti D-Lite on High Street. ‘He walks into the restaurant, and you watch his movies your whole life and there he was, standing in front of you,’ said Matt Davies, Barcelona’s general manager. ‘They were extremely nice people. They came in, they had a nice, little tapas experience. It was almost just like a normal family came in,’ he said.”

Apparently, we’re lucky we get to pay attention to Rachel Griffiths at all, because according to an item on the Starpulse News Blog, she had vowed never to do TV again after Six Feet Under, and was drawn back in only by the wonderfulness of Brothers & Sisters. She’s quoted as saying: “I really wasn’t going to do anything - you know, the reality of having two young kids…And then I read this script. I really had a strong reaction to how it would feel to be (Sarah), where I was at in my life, where she was. That felt good. Then I went off to the interview, hoping the producers were bastards so that I’d have a valid reason not to do the show. And, of course, they utterly charmed me.”

Brothers & Sisters, ABC, Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart

Yeah, we’re all high-minded TV viewers into discussing the intricacies of plotting and fine acting, but heck, it’s Friday, it’s been a stressful week, and who really couldn’t use a little dose of mindless celebrity gossip right about now? Here’s a sampling of news flashes from Gossip Land, gleaned from all the Google alerts that have been building up in my mailbox:

Rob Lowe Killed a Bird!
An unfortunate golf ball incident at a charity game in Iowa got Lowe’s name in a lot of online items this week. While it was undoubtedly embarrassing for the actor and lethal for the goldfinch, it did give Lowe an opportunity to show again that he has a pretty healthy sense of humor about himself. According to an ABC News report: “As the rest of the players in his group broke out in laughter and applause, Lowe raised his arms in mock celebration. ‘That’s my birdie,’ he said after looking at the bird, which lay motionless on the ground. ‘That’s unbelievable. Who comes here and kills the state bird? Only me.’”

Calista Flockhart Will Not Marry!
Lowe’s onscreen fiancee has no intention of wedding anybody offscreen, no matter what the gossips keep saying about Harrison Ford proposing. According to the recent round of non-stories about the non-marriage, Flockhart is quoted as declaring: “Marriage is not important to me. My belief system doesn’t work that way. I feel like our commitment is made in other ways, so I’m very happy (with the way things are).” Celebrity wedding denials often directly precede celebrity weddings, so expect much more fact-free speculation in the weeks and months to come.

Marika Dominczyk Did Marry!
One celebrity couple who actually announced an engagement and followed through on it is Marika Dominczyk, who played Justin’s girlfriend Tyler, and actor Scott Foley, currently of The Unit. According to US Magazine, “The couple wed on Tuesday in a modern Hawaiian ceremony before approximately 30 guests at an exclusive private resort.” If this was a Walker wedding, everyone would jump into the ocean after.

Eric Winter Is Dating a Woman!
And in the time-honored tradition of actors playing gay characters coincidentally being photographed with their beautiful real-life girlfriends, Winter, who plays Kevin’s potential love interest Jason, is shown on the blog Televisionista smooching with Roselyn Sanchez from Without a Trace, whom he has been dating for over a year. They were caught by the camera at a film premiere in her native Puerto Rico.

Balthazar Getty’s Having Twins!
Well, his wife is, anyway. The couple joined Grey’s Anatomy cast members, including Balthazar’s buddy Eric Dane, at a fund-raising event recently to help the homeless, at which, according to USA Today, Mrs. Getty “announced that the couple is expecting twin girls in the fall.” Twins? Yikes. How creepy must it be to have a storyline going in which one of your twins dies shortly after birth when you are in fact expecting twins in real life? That kind of makes me hate that plotline even more. And puts me out of the mood for gossip, anyway.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Rob Lowe, Calista Flockhart, Balthazar Getty, Marika Dominczyk, Eric Winter

There’s lots of drama promised for next Sunday’s new episode, most of it surrounding Sarah and Joe’s marriage and Rebecca and Joe’s alleged kiss and the likelihood of Justin not being able to keep a secret for even so much as one episode. And so here’s a promo that has … well, absolutely nothing to do with any of that. It’s a little YouTube item about Kitty and Robert and a fireside massage. It advances no plot, but I guess it does rope in the viewers who just want to see Rob Lowe on the floor in front of a fire and let their imaginations run. For those folks: Enjoy.

Dear Kitty:

That was some rough dinner you had with the senator’s kids. And what made it roughest was the senator pushing you on his daughter, and his daughter getting sniping remarks from her mom.

But probably, if you want doting precocious daughters to like you, or at least not hate your living guts, you might want to think about wearing an actual shirt and not something that looks like you threw a sweater on over your negligee after crawling out of bed with Dad.

What is that thing? A camisole? Who wears something like that to a dinner with somebody’s kids? It may not be as trashy as the red dress with chicken cutlets padding your butt, but it ain’t good.

Turtlenecks, girl. Button-downs. Cover yourself. Or be okay knowing that Sofia’s reporting back every tacky detail to Mom.

Your friend, Terri

P.S. Loved the cat T-shirt!

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, All in the Family, Kitty Walker, Calista Flockhart

The good news: Brothers & Sisters has a big cover story in the new TV Guide! Hooray! That’s a pretty nice sign that the show’s buzz is building, and dreams of a second season are likely to come true.

The bad news: The article itself is just kind of icky. Sure, I get that putting Rob Lowe on the cover both sells magazines and draws people to the show, and centering the article around the romance of Kitty and the Senator provides an accessible entrance point into a multi-plotted and somewhat complex show. But the journalistic tone here is somewhere along the lines of “Rob and Calista sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Really. I mean it. It’s that bad. Here’s the opener: “Let’s start with the kissing. Oh, we know, Brothers & Sisters is the most sophisticated new show in prime time. The ABC drama tackles serious adult issues such as addiction, homophobia, aging, death, blah, blah, blah … ‘So you want to get right to the big question, do ya?’ Rob Lowe says with a laugh. ‘What’s it like kissing Calista?’”

Lowe comes off as pretty knowing and collaborative with this kind of nonsense, and you can’t blame him because he’s been answering smarmy questions like this for decades. Flockhart seems mortified by the demands to talk about how dreamy her co-star is, and you can’t blame her either, because she probably didn’t expect to be sitting down with Tiger Beat. By the way, the writer wants us to know that around the TV Guide office, Lowe’s character is referred to as Senator Dreamy McSquarejaw. Seriously?

Despite a cover line that promises “What’s next for the family,” there’s very little mention in the article of any other characters, and the spoilers are fairly stale. Still, publicity is a good thing, a cover photo is a very good thing, anything that gets anybody to turn on the TV on a Sunday night and watch the show is a very good thing indeed. So, thanks, TV Guide! Fact is, though, of all the message boards and reviews I’ve read about the show, the kissing discussions have specifically not been about the action between Lowe and Flockhart. When the show’s hot enough to get Matthew Rhys and one of his love interests on the cover, then we’ll know we’re getting somewhere.

There’s a nice interview in this weekend’s Los Angeles Times with the reclusive Calista Flockhart, who plays Kitty on Brothers & Sisters. It’s a sympathetic portrayal of an actress either unwilling or unable to put on a dynamic public persona, and therefore vulnerable to everyone else’s suppositions of what she’s really like. And appropriately, some of the best quotes in the article are from other people — Brothers & Sisters executive producers Ken Olin and Greg Berlanti, show creator Jon Robin Baitz, and co-star Sally Field — trying to put their own spin on her character and conduct. A few testimonials:

Ken Olin: “Wherever she shows up, for whatever reason, she’s such a lightning rod for media and scrutiny and a certain kind of resentment, and I don’t think that’s always easy for her but she’s doing it. She’s had to be tough. That hurts her feelings. When you’re held up being iconic and you represent things — and for her these are things that [ticked] off a lot of people: the neurotic, man-hungry female that is a setback for intelligent, liberated women — people take shots at you. But it’s this character of Ally McBeal that is held up to represent something that she’s not.”

Sally Field: “She and I talked about it because I’ve had more years in the saddle, so to speak, dealing with the press. I think she doesn’t feel she does it well. So she comes in feeling like, ‘Ugh, I’m going to get beat up by this.’ And so it makes her shy. A lot of actors, when they’re put up on a stage like that, they become the class clown and will entertain the troops, as I say. But because her personality is such, the press does what it does. And then the more things hurt her, the more she’s reluctant to come out and be there. It builds with her.”

Jon Robin Baitz: “Calista has a quality of reserve about her under which is a great, great sense of humor, but she’s terribly shy on the surface and doesn’t have something that so many actors have. She doesn’t have a performing quality. Acting for her is more intrinsic. It feels more like the place where she goes to be free and find out more about herself rather than the place where she goes to exhibit herself. I think she saves herself for acting in a way.”

Greg Berlanti: “It would have been very easy, with the kind of scrutiny this show was under early on, for an actor to freak out and ask for more control creatively because so much of their name is on the line and attached to that thing. Not a single call about that. Her one request is the most humane of all: How can I have more time with my son?”

The actress does speak for herself a bit in the article, too, which is worth reading if you love Flockhart and maybe even more, if you hate her.

For those just joining Brothers & Sisters because you’re Rob Lowe fans, or live in Australia, or are finally willing to believe the show’s not as bad as it was made out to be and may be sticking around for a while, here’s a brief guide to who all those brothers and sisters are. Use the episode suggestions to catch up on key episodes in ABC’s Full Episode Player.

Name: Nora Walker
Age: Turned 60 in episode 13, “Something Ida This Way Comes.”
Occupation: Meddlesome mother; worked briefly at family company after husband’s death, but quit after her son Tommy didn’t appreciate “Bring Your Pet to Work Day” or her rules about callers to the company needing to be polite.
Spouse: William, who died in the series’ first episode, leaving his family to painfully find out about his embezzlement from the family company and his longtime affair with Holly Harper, with whom he has a yet-unseen child, Rebecca.
Children: Sarah, Kitty, Tommy, Kevin, Justin
Siblings: Saul
Likes: Liberal causes, cooking, manipulating her offspring
Dislikes: Conservatives, Holly, Kitty’s boyfriends; had tense times with Kitty, who she blamed for pushing Justin to go to war after 9/11, but they’ve mostly made up. Also has mother issues of her own.
Key Episode: In episode 3, “Affairs of State,” she revealed that she wasn’t as in the dark about William’s indiscretions as everybody thought, “innocently” inviting the woman who was her husband’s mistress to a party and then coolly outing her at the dinner table.

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I’ve seen this gossip tidbit all over the Web, including this mention in the Kansas City Star, and oh, it’s just wrong, wrong, wrong: “Security guards on the set of Calista Flockhart’s new TV show telephoned police to have an intruder removed after spotting a disheveled-looking man taking a nap in the back seat of Flockhart’s car, a man who turned out to be Flockhart’s boyfriend, Harrison Ford.” With all due respect to Calista, who is a fine actress and whose level of celebrity certainly helps Brothers & Sisters get noticed … we’re in some sort of spooky celebrity alternate universe when Harrison Ford’s gossip-column mentions consist of being rousted out of his girlfriend Calista Flockhart’s car. Please, please, let’s get that Indy IV project going. If Stallone can get another respectable outing out of Rocky, for goodness sake, surely Lucas and Spielberg can put together something that will make Ford recognizable to security guards at the very least.

Can’t wait for January 7 and the first new Brothers & Sisters episode of the New Year? ABC.com has a video preview up now featuring Calista Flockhart and Rob Lowe that proves that, what do you know, for Kitty and the senator, guns really are foreplay. If you’re more interested in the romance ahead for Matthew Rhys’ Kevin and the soap-opera hunk played by guest-start Jason Lewis, there are photos of the January 14 episode, “Sexual Politics,” on both Brothers & Sisters - TV and Best. Gay. Day. Ever., though only the latter comes with funny captions.

The new issue of TV Guide features an “annual roundup of the hot stars and even hotter shows that made 2006 such a beautiful TV year.” And although it’s not listed among the top 10 shows, Brothers & Sisters does get a little mention in a list titled “Second Comings: We loved them the first time around, too.” The loved one here is Calista Flockhart, of whom the TV Guide scribes say: “The skirts are longer and the dancing baby’s MIA (thank God), but Flockhart’s still got that quirky McBeal appeal as Brother & Sisters’ romantically challenged Kitty Walker.” I don’t know about the romantically challenged part — girl seems to have handsome men falling at her feet. Holding on to them’s a bit of a problem, sure, but she no sooner fumbles one than the next one shows up shining. Lots of single women wouldn’t mind having that challenge, I’m thinking. “Hmm, Jonathan’s gone and Warren’s dating a teenager … but here’s Rob Lowe!”