Brothers & Sisters

Tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC, Michael Imperioli gets to see his mother, Ellen Burstyn, For One More Day. If that doesn’t sound like a Brothers & Sisters story to you, you’re right — it’s the second half of a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie that started at 9 p.m., pre-empting both the desperate housewives and the Walkers.

If you feel like you can’t stand to be without the Walkers for one more day, I hear you. I figure this missed week is a good time to catch up with the only episode now missing from my Season 1 round-up, and that is the never-seen-on-TV episode that got cut from that first season and added to the DVD. It’s going to be a real time-warp experience to go back to those early Walker days, especially since this episode went in directions the show ultimately did not purse. But I’m up for it — are you? If so, watch it with me tonight, then come back during the week for the usual review, recap, memorable lines and questions.

Rather watch something a little more immediate? There are now “Writer’s Room” videos available for all the episodes through last Sunday’s wedding extravaganza. Since the last two have not been featured on the Brothers & Sisters home page, I’d assumed they weren’t doing them anymore because of the writer’s strike (as appears to still be the case for the show’s three blogs, Bloggers & Sisters, McCallister and Me and The Brothers & Sisters Writer’s Blog on TVGuide.com). But if you click on “Writer’s Room” from that main page, they are indeed there.

I don’t know whether the writers are doing these under duress; or if they’re obligated because they’re all some variation of producer instead of just writers; or if the taping was done before the strike. I do know that the videos are about as fascinating-content-free as they were before the strike. The participants do generally look tired and disheveled and not thrilled to be there, and if you told me there was a gun next to the camera, I wouldn’t be surprised.

The “Writer’s Room” for Episode 9 does give us the only official preview we’ve had for Episode 10, though. Mike Page, Production Assistant, shares that the newlyweds will hit the campaign trail, with McCallister being confronted with his “war hero past” while speaking to veterans. There will be developments with what he describes as the “Justin Tommy Lena Julia love triangle,” though by my count that’s either two triangles or a love rectangle. Kevin and Scotty’s relationship will be put to the test by unsettled matters in Kevin’s past, which makes me wonder if this is the episode in which the Reverend Ex-Boyfriend returns. The mystery of Holly’s old acquaintance David will deepen at a “revealing dinner” at which he meets Rebecca. And Nora somehow gets the whole family involved on her first date with Isaac.

It still looks like we’re waiting for January for all that fun. It’s a good thing, then, that we have our DVDs to keep us warm through this cold Walker-less December.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, writer’s room