brothers and sisters

i have long wanted to write about this new show on abc called 'brothers and sisters.'

the sheer star value of this show made it on my must-see list as the networks unveiled their programs this fall. stars from my favorite shows such as ally mcbeal (calista flockhart), alias (balthazar getty, ron rifkin & patricia wettig), six feet under (rachel griffiths), reunion (dave annable) plus sally field (sally field!) made for some smorgasbord casting and i was initially intrigued as to how the writers or the producers would treat each character, and which of the characters would shine.

i've watched all of the first three episodes and suffice it to say, i am on board. i hope abc picks it up for a full season, unlike what happened to reunion last year. i like how the story is family-centric, focusing on the conflicts the characters have to go through, and how the stories get inter-twined somewhere. i was a big fan of calista in ally mcbeal (a friend of mine and myself even trooped to beverly hills six or so years ago to catch a play that starred calista and paul rudd and some other guy). i like her character in this new show, although the writers haven't fully threshed it out yet. she's like meredith grey, in the love department, as she is, well was now, torn between two lovers. hah!

the guy from pepper dennis (rebecca romijn's show on wb) who played the smug newscaster plays the same role (smug newscaster, different person) in this show and he and calista have some chemistry going, almost similar to that of calista and gil bellows' character years ago on mcbeal. hah. parallelisms.

so what is brothers & sisters? bottomline: it's a show about, well, brothers and sisters. calista and rachel & dave and balthazar are brothers and sisters. well, there's five of them, including the gay brother. sally field plays the role of the mom, and tom skerritt was the dad, who died on the first episode. that's when everything unravelled. dad has a mistress (patricia, the doctor/shrink on alias). dad also left a once-burgeoning family business in debt. mom has a brother, uncle sal (ron rifkin), who knew about dad's mistress, but didn't tell mom. calista and bf/fiancee were based in new york, before calista accepted the job offer from a network in LA (and dad died) so she moved to sunny cali. rachel is married, with two kids and co-runs the family business with balthazar. when dad died, he made (in his will) rachel president, and it hurt balthazar. dave is the youngest brother, he went to iraq and is into recreational drugs. he doesn't know where he's going, he has a rebellious streak, but is very close to kitty (calista). the gay brother is a lawyer. enough said.

can't wait for the next episode.