TIME TO SAY GOODBYE: BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Sadly, sometimes you just have to let a show go!

And so it is that I’ve decided to pull the plus on ABC’s Brothers and Sisters, the Sunday night drama that’s been a regular soapy addition to my viewing habits for the last 4 years.

As you may recall I had BIG misgivings regarding the show last season, which I wrote about in my O Brother posting – hoping the show might improve. But now, 2 episodes into the series 5^th year it’s become obvious that Brothers and Sisters is a dead show walking. I just don’t care about the characters, the storylines or the show itself anymore. It’s over…

When it first started Brothers and Sisters was a much better, and rather different, show. Sure the series was always kind of cheesy – and very heavy on the schmaltz factor, but there was something comforting about Nora Walker’s Californian home and the interlocking lives of her extended family. You really liked these characters and were intrigued by the paths their lives were taking (check out the season 1 trailer below with the original Nora Walker!)

Always in the background was the drama of the late William Walkers’ life of lies – a nest of secrets that the family were forced to unravel and gave some much needed bite to the series. There was Holly Harper, the mistress, whose strained relationship with Nora provided some of the show’s best moments; the search for William’s secret love child (later revealed to be Rebecca, then Ryan); and the business dramas at Ojai Foods, as the company lurched precariously from one financial crises to another.

Meanwhile the show gave us the best representation of a gay man seen on network TV so far in the form of Kevin Walker, who wasn’t queeny and limp wristed, didn’t do drag and never used the words ‘fierce’ and ‘fabulous’.  And the cast themselves were a stellar bunch: Sally Field; Calista Flockhart; Rachel Griffiths; Patricia Wellig; Balthazar Getty and later Rob Lowe. The show could and should have done so much more with them.

And for the first few years it did. I was an avid Brothers and Sisters fan and a regular champion of the series in its early days, right up to the show’s crowning moment – the beautifully played season 3 special, featuring Robert McCallister’s heart attack and Kitty giving birth – a tour de force that delivered some of the show’s strongest ratings to date (and without a hefty Desperate Housewives lead in)

But since then the show has been on a continued downward spiral with dull storylines (Kevin and Scotty try for a baby), contrivances (Kitty’s dramatic cancer storyline was miraculously cured overnight) and a rigid show formula that always includes a family bust up in Act Four, followed by apologies in the show’s final five minutes.

Everyone knew the show was broken and I had high hopes for this season, following the dramatic Season 4 car crash cliffhanger and one year flash forward. But unlike Desperate Housewives which used its own flash forward to re-energize the series, Brothers and Sisters now seems to have gone backwards.

Two episodes into season 5 and the show has just become pure froth again. This week’s show featured a silly case of mistaken identity (the family thought Nora had become a lesbian); Justin back at his most annoying and whiny; Holly suffering from amnesia (one of the biggest drama clichés out there!); Luc now working as an underwear model (this is the best they could come up with!), 14 year old Paige attending Luc’s fashion party, getting drunk and throwing up (more clichés) and Kevin and Scotty now about to adopt a troubled street kid (zzzz!)

None of the above plots have any real substance and everything is generally resolved in the space of an episode. Plus there’s no sense of threat or jeopardy to Brothers and Sisters anymore. The family has now made a fortune from the ‘Narrow Lake’ deal and formerly spiky characters like Tommy, Ryan and Holly are now either gone or neutered. There’s no real conflict because everyone is essentially nice, pleasant – and let’s be honest, dull.

Sadly I don’t see Brothers and Sisters getting better in the weeks and months to come, so I shall be bowing out now before the show declines any further (at the moment the chances of a 6^th season are 50-50 at best). There’s simply too many good shows on TV nowadays to waste time on a show past its prime…

But what do you think? Have you had it with Brothers and Sisters? Or do you think the show’s flash forward device has done the trick? Start weighing in everyone…!