Brothers & Sisters: Season 3 (2008-09)

I’m not a soap watcher, but I love Brothers & Sisters, which really is just a glossy, American soap, since there’s no real theme too it, except the relationships between the central titular siblings and their families.

The main appeal of Brothers & Sisters when I first started watching it was the awesome cast, which includes Sally Field (mom Nora a.k.a. Mrs Doubtfire’s wife/Forrest Gump’s mother, etc), Calista Flockhart (Kitty a.k.a Ally McBeal), Rachel Griffiths (Sarah a.k.a Brenda from Six Feet Under) and Ron Rifkin (uncle Saul a.k.a the bad guy from Alias). Later in season one, the West Wing’s Rob Lowe joined the cast as Senator McAllister, Kitty’s love interest and now husband. The rest of the extended cast includes Matthew Rhys (Kevin, the gay one), Balthazar Getty (Tommy, the bad boy), and Dave Annable (Justin, the youngest, hottest one), as the Walker brothers, with Patricia Wettig (Holly Harper, baddy from Prison Break), Luke Macfarlane (Kevin’s hot husband) and the underused Sarah Jane Morris, who plays Tommy’s wife.

And then there’s Emily VanCamp, who plays the one-time Walker sibling, who turned out not to be half-sister after all, and became Justin’s girlfriend in season 3. Over the course of this last season, which Channel 4 saw fit to strip across weekday lunchtimes for some reason, I came to really like Rebecca. She’s caught in the middle between the Walkers and her mother, the Walker father’s mistress, and now part owner of Ohai foods, the family firm. Her relationship with Justin also put her in some tricky situations, and she tried not to hurt either her boyfriend, his family, or her rocky relationship with her mother and estranged father – a balancing act that failed now and then, especially towards the season end when Tommy Walker tricked her into an illegal deal to oust Holly.

Season 3 has had some hilarious episodes and moments, and it has had the usual emotional rollercoasters too. Examples of the first include Nora getting drunk at a party, and getting inappropriate with Nigel Havers’ suave architect, and Kevin and Scotty’s failed attempt at a threesome! Emotional times involved Tommy’s daughter getting rushed to hospital for a liver transplant, and Senator McAllister’s heart-attack, followed by the slow dissolve of his relationship with Kitty, while they bring up their newly adopted daughter.

Brothers & Sisters covers a lot of bases – facing new relationships in mid-life (Sarah) and older (Nora); the joys and home comforts of gay monogamy (Kevin and under-used Scotty); coming out for older gay men (Saul, and his boyfriend, who makes just one-episode appearance); estranged fathers (Rebecca)… and much more. Including the introduction of the Walkers’ actual half-brother, Ryan, who blames his father for his mother’s death, and has an unhealthy attraction to Rebecca.

I could just write and write about Brothers & Sisters, which isn’t a trendy musical comedy, or a sexy science fiction show, or indeed anything particularly cool. But it’s a wonderfully written, heartfelt, and funny show, full of well-rounded characters played by a team of excellent actors. I can’t wait for Channel 4 to put the next season on, apparently it’s been and gone on More4 so I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled.