Brothers & Sisters

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:

+ In introducing himself, Grant mentions that he used to be an actor. “I couldn’t get a job, so I became a writer.”

+ Wilborn says he started writing in high school when a teacher inspired him. But Grant prods him to reveal what else he’s done along the way to being a B&S writer: He played professional football, briefly, for the Seattle Seahawks. “I like to say I was there for a cup of coffee,” Wilborn says. Grant responds, “There aren’t any writers that I know have that had … that even go to professional football games.”

+ The inspiration for the episode came from wanting to have another one of those Walker dinner parties.

+ The episode was shot the day after they finished writing it, which was unusual (and strike-motivated?).

+ In the original script, Kevin was going to be at a corporate dinner party. The network note was to put him at the Walker dinner party, which meant a lot of changes to those later scenes.

+ In response to the question, “What was it like writing for Danny Glover,” Wilborn compares the actor to a jazz musician. Grant mentions how amazing it is to have Danny Glover and Sally Field doing your scene, and also drops that he was in a movie with Glover years ago (a quick check of IMDb suggests the 1988 war movie Bat*21).

+ In response to the question, “Is season following the path you planned?” Grant says that you make a map, and then you throw out the map, and then you realize you’re not even in the same country. (And boy, does that explain a lot about this season.) He says they try to surprise themselves, and hope that in that way they’ll surprise the audience.

Hmmm, surprises. Surprises are good in theory. In practice? They’re Tommy having an affair. They’re Kevin taking up with an old boyfriend when we were all excited about the new one. They’re somebody finding out their father isn’t who we thought (hope that one doesn’t come to pass). Enough with the surprises, already. Find the damn map.

(And, you know, get back to work. Things are starting to sound promising for a strike resolution. Fingers crossed, everybody.)

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Writer’s Room, Feast of the Epiphany