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New Series Review: Brothers & Sisters (ABC)


Premiering: Sunday night, Sept. 24, 9 central, 10 eastern
Starring: Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart, Patricia Wettig, Ron Rifkin, Balthazar Getty, Dave Annable, Matthew Rhys, John Pyper-Ferguson, Sarah Jane Morris
Produced by: Jon Robin Baitz, Ken Olin, Marti Noxon

By ED BARK
A reworked pilot and a re-jiggered cast has stuck this vitally important ABC series with fall TV's annual "troubled" tag. Glad they went to the trouble, though.

Brothers & Sisters, supplanting transplanted Grey's Anatomy on Sunday nights, won't draw as large or as young an audience as ABC's hit med drama. But viewers with a little more tire tread on them should warm to this well-acted, multi-layered family drama. The high-voltage cast matches that of NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, with Rachel Griffiths, Sally Field and Calista Flockhart (pictured left to right above) leading the way. Griffiths is especially good. She simply doesn't know any better. Ask fans of Six Feet Under.

thirtysomething alum Patricia Wettig is also aboard, having vacated the presidency on Fox's Prison Break. Her off-camera husband, Ken Olin, who directs the premiere episode, shares the same past ABC credit. Add the always-welcome Tom Skerritt, who guest-stars as the family patriarch.

Flockhart, who seems to have beefed up minimally since her latter day Ally McBeal daze, plays a conservative radio talk show host named Kitty. Her politics make her pretty much a square peg within the fractious Walker family. Momma Nora (Field) hasn't spoken to her in three years. And big sis Sarah (Griffiths) jokes that an overturn of Roe v. Wade would make a perfect 39th birthday present for Kitty hawk, who also supports the war in Iraq.

Prodigal Kitty is returning home anyway, in part to audition for a Crossfire-esque national TV gig that would require her to move from East to West. This allows us to meet her three brothers as well. Tommy (Balthazar Getty) is a "charming womanizer," Kevin (Matthew Rhys) a gay lawyer and baby bro Justin (Dave Annable) a traumatized Iraq war vet with a drug problem.

Mom blames Kitty in part for putting Justin in harm's way while Sarah twits her conservatism by asking, "Who made you this way?"

"I'm sick of the cracks about my family beliefs," Kitty tells the family at large. "You just keep on laughing and watch the rest of the country pass you by."

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Studio also has a prominent female conservative in its cast. As with Kitty, she's in the minority. But neither character is played strictly for laughs in the first episodes of these shows.

Brothers & Sisters otherwise is about a failing family business, we learn. Papa Bear (Skerritt) so far has kept this a big secret from his brood. Besides that, he has a "mystery woman" (Wettig) on the side. She apparently knows a lot that we don't yet.

Also in play is Kitty's would-be fiance, who wants them to stay in New York City.

"I just know what we have," he tells her. "And I don't want to lose that to this media thing."

Yeah, well, you're gonna be toast, buster. Brothers & Sisters needs Kitty back with the Walker family litter, never more so than after tragedy strikes. ABC almost desperately hopes you'll stay the course on a Sunday night that it dominated last season. But CBS has flexed its muscle by moving Without A Trace to the closing hour of prime-time Sunday. And NBC already is prospering with pro football.

That gives Brothers & Sisters a stiff test that it might well fail. Not for lack of trying, though. This is a textured, well-executed, serious-minded serial that builds nicely over Sunday's first hour. Whatever its fate, pencil Griffiths in for another Emmy nomination. She's still worth the price of your submission.

Prospects: Not overly bright in a newly tough time slot.

Grade: B-plus