Brothers & Sisters (TV Show) (DVD)

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"I know we're in different emotional places."

As one of the characters in "Brothers & Sisters" says that, I'm thinking, yes, we are. Some people think that's fine writing, and I'm watching this ABC series thinking it's probably the purest soap opera on the air during prime time. The production values come closer to daytime soaps than some of the slick melodramas, with more stand-and-talks, long exchanges, and a preponderance of emotion in each scene and every line of dialogue. Reinforcing the emotion is a weepy musical backdrop, and as the music comes to crescendo you know the dramatic tension has reached another peak.

"Brothers & Sisters" is a soap with all the limitations that a soap opera brings to the table. It's not stylish, and it's not going to win any screenwriting prizes any time soon. But people who like soaps will say in response, "Yes, but it's a good soap opera."

And that it is, because "Brothers & Sisters" is well-cast.

The series centers on the Walkers, an upper middle-class California family with grown siblings (it's hard to do the adult soap thing with little ones hanging around). The matriarch is Nora (Sally Field), who was traumatized more in season one by the revelation that her husband William had a woman on the side and a child by him than she was by his death. The trauma that launches the second season the family's sendoff of a brother who's struggled with drug problems. But Justin (Dave Annable) isn't going to rehab . . . he's headed for Iraq. Conveniently, his sister Kitty (Calista Flockhart), who's an Ann Coulter sort, is engaged to Senator Robert McCallister (Rob Lowe), a Republican who's running for president, and tensions mount when the family starts to think they're milking the situation for political gain.

Every TV melodrama needs a gay relationship lately, and in "Brothers & Sisters" the Walker's brother Kevin (Matthew Rhys), who had the misfortune of having a relationship with a minister who announces he's leaving the country to serve where he's needed. "I'll wait for you," Kevin says. And in a bit of boldness, ABC tempers schmaltzy lines like that with a very real depiction of a gay relationship, complete with kisses on the mouth.
Then there's Uncle Saul (Ron Rifkin), who wrestles with coming out of closet.

A soap wouldn't be sudsy without sexual shenanigans, and there's plenty in "Brothers & Sisters." The oldest Walker sibling, Sarah (Rachel Griffiths), is trying to salvage her marriage to Joe (John Pyper-Ferguson), but learns that the wild ride on the washing machine that he gave her came at the same time as he was getting it on with another woman--plus, he had the audacity to hit on illegitimate half-sister Rebecca (Emily VanCamp). Not to be outdone in the insensitivity department, the oldest Walker brother Tommy (Balthazar Getty) becomes the business partner of his father's old mistress Holly (Patricia Wettig) and has an affair with his secretary (Emily Rose), which of course doesn't set well with his wife, Julia (Sarah Jane Morris). Then there's Justin, who at some point starts having feelings for his half-sister, Rebecca.

Yes, we are in different emotional places.

But I can appreciate the performances, especially Field, who almost makes you buy the late mid-life crisis that gets her doing a few wild things like smoking pot and having an interracial fling with Isaac Marshall (Danny Glover).