Brothers & Sisters

The nominations for this year’s Emmys are out, and Brothers & Sisters is … um, up for exactly the same awards as last year: Casting, Supporting Actress (Rachel Griffiths), and Lead Actress (Sally Field). Not to take away from our beloved Sarah and Nora at all, but … has anybody noticed that there are many other very fine actors at work here? I guess that’s what casting’s all about.

According to a post on the Television With Pity forum, Griffiths picked “Domestic Issues” for her submission (and rightly so, because it was by far her best episode in a season where she was underused), and Field submitted “History Repeating,” I guess for her passionate pleading with her junkie son to go on drugs again. Not my fave, but I suppose it’s gotta lotta Big Drama.

Casting competition is Damages, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, and The Tudors. Other Drama Supporting Actress contenders are Candice Bergen (Boston Legal), Dianne Wiest (In Treatment), and Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy). Other Drama Lead Actress contenders are Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer), Glenn Close (Damages), Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU) and Holly Hunter (Saving Grace).

Boy, with the exception of Hargitay, that Lead Actress race looks like it could have been an Oscar ballot from about ten years ago, doesn’t it? I don’t know whether to feel cheered that TV’s offering big chewy roles to great actresses, or sad that the movies aren’t.

One interesting tidbit: The two character names from Brothers & Sisters are listed as Nora Holden-Walker and Sarah Walker-Whedon. Are they really hyphenates on the show?

Brothers and Sisters, Emmys, Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths

Two brothers and a brother-in-law, promoting their show in Rome.

Brothers and Sisters, Luke MacFarlane, Balthazar Getty, Dave Annable

Last year, the unreliable gossip rags were full of accounts of romance between Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys. And now, this morning, what should hit my Google Alerts inbox but unreliable-gossip-rag accounts of romance between Sienna Miller and Balthazar Getty.

Who knows whether there’s any truth in the reports of the actress and “her new multi-millionaire lover”? The purportedly incriminating photos are laughably tame (”the oil heir” … pumps his own gas!). Of course, I only looked at about a dozen of them before I was overcome with shame. Maybe photo 23 or 24 was gossip dynamite.

However, three things do come to mind in the wake of such hyperbolic accusations:

1. If the story’s made up, it’s kind of a measure of the rising profile of these actors that somebody’s bothering to fabricate salacious stories about them.

2. If the story’s true, then either Tommy’s stupidity over the past season has rubbed off on Getty, or vice versa.

3. Either way, one thing’s for sure: Annable’s next.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, Balthazar Getty, Matthew Rhys, Sienna Miller

I’ll have a full Retcon Patrol later today, but for now, a quick question. TV Squad had the following in its Spoilers Anonymous post today, regarding Brothers & Sisters: “Ryan had a troubled past involving drugs, discipline problems and low self-esteem.”

So, essentially, Ryan is a male Rebecca? Or, come to think of it, a bastard version of Justin?

I’d have thought we had enough druggy low-self-esteem discipline problems on this show to last a dozen seasons. Wouldn’t it be more fun if, say, Ryan was a squeaky-clean Young Republican who’d already started a couple of extremely successful businesses at his young age and thought the Walkers were a bunch of underachievers? Let’s see Nora embrace that.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Entertainment Weekly has an article up on “writers’ strike postscripts,” in which creative folk behind seven shows talk about what it’s like getting back to work.

I was delighted to see Brothers & Sisters included among the seven, in such good company as Lost, Ugly Betty, and Saturday Night Live. And I was even more delighted to see that the interview was with Greg Berlanti, since it implies that he’ll maybe be more involved with this end-of-the-season run than he was with the early-season episodes (his attention having been diverted by Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone, both of which are presumably done now for the season).

Since I’m lacking in new episodes to recap this week, I’m going to go ahead and go through Berlanti’s little mini-interview here, to try to interpret what it might mean to the show, and how much we should be worrying about how fast they’re going to have to put this stuff together. The quotes in italics below are directly from the article; they’re Berlanti’s words, as told to Ari Karpel. In between are my thoughts and responses. Share yours in the comments.

(more…)

As Scott mentioned in the comments a few posts back, we now have official re-entry data for Brothers & Sisters: Our show will be back on April 20, and we’re getting four new episodes before the season’s done.

Hooray for that! And boo for this: Of the returning ABC dramas, B&S looks to be getting the smallest number of remaining episodes. According to a TV Guide round-up, Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy are getting five more, Lost is getting at least five more, and Desperate Housewives has five more plus a two-hour finale.

Now, it’s true, B&S has probably burned more plot this season than all those shows put together, so perhaps four is all they need to wrap things up. And I’d rather have four great ones than five stretched. It may well turn out to be a creative decision, based on plot pacing and actor availability and other production concerns. Still, I’m gonna hold a grudge against ABC just on principle.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers & Sisters, ABC, writers strike, returning shows

The Brothers & Sisters writer’s blog, Bloggers & Sisters, has been out of commission for the duration of the strike, with strike-related posts deleted and that picture of Ken Olin in a makeup chair being the top item for lo these many months.

But the strike’s over now, and happily, the writers have announced their return with a brief post on their blog. It doesn’t say much more than “We’re back!” but does thank us for our support and promise to reward us with “delicious new episodes.”

Well, delicious is fine. Smoothly written, carefully plotted, and well-paced? Better still!

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Bloggers and Sisters, writers strike

It’s finally over, and about time! Writers are going back to work today, and according to the chart on TV Guide’s Ausiello report, that means we’ll get four or five more episodes of Brothers & Sisters, in April or May. That’s on top of the one pre-strike episode set to air this Sunday.

Let’s hope that good, long rest the writers got gave them lots of good ideas for the Walkers, and that without a strike hanging over their heads, they’ll be able to take a little time with it. If they keep the pace they’ve been on this season, four or five episodes is enough for at least a couple of the characters to get married and divorced. But it doesn’t have to be that way, writers, it doesn’t have to be.

The photo above is of a T-shirt I purchased after the last Writers Guild strike, when I was living in Los Angeles and affected by the strike in a very small way (had an article I wrote on spec get cancelled when the fall TV season was). On the paper is typed, “Let’s do lunch again!”

Happy lunching to everyone in Hollywood today, and good luck getting back to business.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, writers strike

Woo-hoo! It’s about time we had some good news. Though we still don’t know when and how the Walkers will finish up their rocky Season Two, ABC has gone ahead and let us know that there will indeed be a Season Three. B&S was among nine series getting the advance go-ahead for next season. The others: Desperate Housewives, Dirty Sexy Money, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, Samantha Who? and Ugly Betty.

These shows are described by ABC as “broadcast television’s most sucessful fall series.” I also sort of enjoyed the way the press release described the Walkers: “a collection of five enmeshed and somewhat damaged siblings.” But man, do they know how to have fun, as I hope we’ll see next week.

So raise a glass to our favorite family in congratulations for a job well done, a job soon to be come back to, and a job that will go on at least one more season. Throw a party. Take a road trip. Fling some pasta. Jump in a pool. It’s time to celebrate!

In addition to the actual writing of episodes, the Writers Guild Strike has stopped the writing of most of the Brothers & Sisters extras, like the writer’s blog Bloggers & Sisters (last post dated 10/19, though a couple of posts after that were deleted), the silly mock-political blog McCallister and Me (last post dated 10/22), and the TV Guide version of the writer’s blog (last post dated 10/20).

But there’s one writer-related promotional door that hasn’t been closed, and that’s the “Writer’s Room,” the video interview with the episode’s writers posted on the ABC site after each episode airs. I keep forgetting to look for it, since it doesn’t seem right that the writers should be having anything to do with the show at the moment; but either these promotional duties don’t count, or the interviews were taped before the strike, or somebody’s holding a gun just outside the frame.

However they got it, there’s a video up for Episode 10, “The Feast of the Epiphany, with the writers who wrote it, David Marshall Grant and Jason Wilborn. Some highlights:

(more…)

TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello has delivered a big package of Brothers & Sisters spoilers in the latest edition of his Ask Ausiello. They bear discussion, but for those who are trying to remain spoiler-free, I’ll go ahead and continue the chat after the jump.

I don’t think it’s ruining anything, though, to say that there are lots of transitions for our favorite dysfunctional family in these next two episodes. Name me any two episodes this season that haven’t packed in loads of transitions. At this point, the most stunning spoiler would be: “The Walkers get drunk in one episode, and sleep it off the next. No one marries, divorces, hooks up, breaks up, quits a job, starts a company, flirts with somebody else’s husband, gets pregnant, loses a baby, loses custody, gets custody, does drugs, detoxes, leaks a political secret, cheats, tattles, provokes or takes offense.”

(more…)

Here’s your TV lesson for today: You can depict sex crimes and serial killers week in and week out. You can examine murdered corpses and cross-examine psychopaths. You can characterize surgeons as sex-crazed and irresponsible, and base your dramas on outlandish medical cases with but a delicate thread connecting them to anything anatomically accurate.

But suggest that every vaccine is not 100 percent safe for every last small soulful child in America, and the wrath of the American Academy of Pediatrics will come DOWN ON YOUR HEAD!

That’s the lesson being learned right now by wandering Brothers & Sisters producers Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, whose new series, Eli Stone, has been condemned by the AAP. Apparently basing their critique on a New York Times story about one of Eli’s cases — in which he wins a judgment for a mother who claims that the “mercuritrol” in one manufacturer’s vaccine caused her son’s autism — the organization has called for ABC to cancel the show, or to run a disclaimer indicating that there is no scientific proof linking autism and vaccines.

The AAP’s fear is that people will watch the episode — in which Eli, whether due to a brain aneurysm or a call to be a prophet, has visions that include George Michael singing “Faith” in his living room — and interpret it to be a work of rigorous scientific accuracy, causing widespread rejection of lifesaving vaccines for children. I think they’re being a little optimistic as to what sort of audience a fantasy legal drama debuting at 10 p.m. is going to get, but it probably does stand to do a little better now that the AAP is handling its publicity.

(more…)

Well, the agony was over early last night for Sally Field (pictured at right with Jane Krakowski and a dress that was possibly beaded by a kindergarten class) and those who hoped she might take the SAG award for best actress in a drama series. Hers was the second trophy of the night, and the second in a Sopranos sweep of the drama awards — Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cast. It’s the last year that mob will be around to dominate, so I suppose we can’t really begrudge them. Bye, bye, be gone.

I don’t know what they use to decide these things, what episodes get submitted, but … can I just say, that teensy clip they showed when Field’s name was read, who picked that thing? Boy, it was a harsh flashback, wasn’t it? It was from “An Act of Will,” and featured Nora and Justin screaming at each other — checking my Memorable Lines round-up, I think it was this exchange, or one like it:

Nora: Your father loved you more than anything on earth, you little spoiled brat.
Justin: You know what love means in this family? It means you suck. It means nothing you do will be good enough.

Ouch! It seems to me that episode came before the role of Nora was sort of Sally-fied, to become a little softer, feisty but not mean, opinionated but not brutal. Odd for those few bitchy seconds to represent the actress in an award intro.

Odd, too, to have it juxtaposed with the re-run that showed last night, “History Repeating.” From Nora yelling at Justin for being an ungrateful druggie, to Nora yelling at Justin to be a druggie again. I’m mostly glad to have angry old Nora gone, but oh boy, would I have loved to see her let loose on Julia’s SOB dad. Or, at least, food-fight Nora. That guy needs a big old strawberry shortcake in the puss, immediately.

Actually, maybe a food fight could have livened up the SAGs a little, too, as long as they’re giving trophies at a dinner. Looking at some of the losers, it kinda seems like they wouldn’t mind unloading some pasta salad on the person trotting up to the stage. But no, all was well-behaved, with no drunk speeches like you can usually count on at the Golden Globes.

There were a few plugs for a fair resolution to the writer’s strike in acceptance speeches, and in quotes from nominees backstage. Associated Press quotes Sally Field as saying: “It needs to be resolved. I worry about the crews, the writers, the actors. Our country is in a very precarious time right now and we need entertainment.” Well, we sure do, and shouldn’t she worry about us, the poor innocent fans, as well?

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, SAG Awards, History Repeating

Can you bear to watch those Walkers make their mistakes a second time? Will you tune in once again to see Julia ditch her marriage, Justin go back on drugs, Tommy go golfing with his father-in-law and not run him over with a golf cart? Are you eager to revisit Robert’s ex, or return to Kevin and Scotty’s reunion? Can you stand to once again view an episode with almost no Sarah?

“History Repeating” is repeating tonight, and since it was a pretty painful outing for our embattled brothers and sisters, I’m not feeling great eagerness to repeat my history of watching it. On the other hand, a review of the episode’s memorable lines reminds me of this pronouncement by Saul:

I don’t hate golf. I loathe it, I despise it. I would rather spend all eternity at a dinner party seated next to Britney Spears than waste an afternoon lugging clubs around with a bunch of overfed, overprivileged Arnold Palmer wannabes.

and rewatching may be worth it just for that. Ha!

Of course, there’s another big show on tonight, at least for award-show lovers, and that’s the SAG Awards on TBS and TNT from 8-10 p.m. (and again from 11 p.m.-1 a.m.) It’s as close as we may get to the Oscars this year, since the Writer’s Guild has given the SAGs permission to proceed but may picket and shut down the Oscar ceremony (or at least, the glamorous red-carpet celebrities in silly dresses portion of it, which is so much of the fun). I’ve watched the SAGs before, and don’t remember if there have always been red-carpet pre-shows for it, but there certainly are tonight — on E!, the TV Guide Channel, TBS.com, and TNT.tv.

You’ll want to watch the ceremony, of course, to see if Sally Field emerges triumphant in her race for best actress in a drama series. You’ll also want to watch to boo with me when the names are read for the best cast in a drama series award, and our wonderful Walkers are not included. I don’t know about you, but I think I feel the same way about Boston Legal as Saul does about golf.

Then, when the awards are all distributed and the speeches made, you can still switch right over and catch that Brothers & Sisters repeat. If you can handle the pain.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, History Repeating, SAG awards

No matter how much Brothers & Sisters may get dissed for Best Show or Best Cast recognition by major award outlets, one place the show usually finds some appreciation is at the GLAAD Media Awards.

The awards, given by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, “recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and the issues that affect their lives.”

Brothers & Sisters won the Best Drama Series trophy last year in its first season (that’s Matthew Rhys accepting for the show above), and is nominated again this year, along with Degrassi: The Next Generation, Dirty Sexy Money, Greek, and The L Word.

ABC, the network of Brothers & Sisters and Dirty Sexy Money, and also of Best Comedy Series nominees Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty, led all networks in nominations, with nine.

There are 40 Media Awards categories in all, including movies, plays, TV news, and print media. The four criteria used in selecting the nominees are: Fair, Accurate, and Inclusive Representation; Boldness and Originality; Impact; and Overall Quality.

I’d say B&S excels in those areas, for sure. Congratulations to all those involved with the show for finally getting nominated for something other than actress and supporting actress.

On the GLAAD site, you can view video from this year’s nominations and last year’s award ceremony, look at photos from past events, read some facts and figures about the current nominees, and find out about the distribution of this year’s awards, which will take place in four cities over three months.

Brothers & Sisters, ABC, GLAAD, awards