According to Zap2It, Brothers & Sisters has, improbably, received a season order. This is quite a reversal of fortune for the show, which, I'm pretty sure, required three pilots and is already on its second show runner. Apparently it's managing to hold onto some of Desperate Housewives' audience.
I did not make it through the most recent episode and I'm thinking of dropping the show entirely. Rachel Griffiths's character is a real problem. Griffiths was never anything less than completely sympathetic and believable as snotty, philandering, entitled, self-obsessed Brenda on Six Feet Under, but can't seem to make me care about, let alone like, her character on this show, whose name escapes me right now . . . Susan? Sarah! Sarah Whedon. (Why Whedon? Because Marti Noxon was the first show runner?) Sally Field, Calista Flockhart and Ron Rifkin are problems, not so much because they're bad, but because they're too famous now to escape into their characters or at least these characters, all of which are pretty sketchily-defined. (Oh, and we're supposed to buy Field and Rifkin as siblings?) There are too many characters: five siblings plus Field's Nora, plus Rifkin's "Uncle Sauly," plus various hangers-on, including Patricia Wettig and allegedly, Sarah-Jane Morris. Consequently, Balthazar Getty has nothing to do except stand around looking vaguely pissed-off. The promotional material for this show prominently featured a sweaty, shirtless Getty. We've been ripped off.
Maybe, with a whole season to work it out, the show will find some sort of rhythm. It's encouraging that Noxon has already left and it's even more encouraging that her replacement is Greg Berlanti -- Peter
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