There are moments in this week's episode where everything I think Brothers & Sisters [Sundays at 10 pm/ET, on ABC] should come together perfectly; comedy and tragedy coexist — just like they do in real life, turning, dancing with each other in perpetuity. The episode has it all — male passions run amok, female passions threaten to cause thermonuclear war, farce, drunkenness, sorrow and laughter. In my humble opinion, a great episode. There are moments of acting in "Grapes of Wrath" that took my breath away when I saw it. One in particular stands out. I don't want to say too much, but it takes place in a kitchen during a showdown between Nora and Holly. Both actresses, Sally Field and Patty Wettig are real and funny and frightening in a way that brings to mind some of the great turns that John Cassavetes managed to capture on film — I'm thinking of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence in particular. The camera comes close in so as to deprive them of any pri...
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Indulge me while I do something completely out of character: Toot my own horn. As you know, back in August I publicly pressured Brothers & Sisters executive producer Greg Berlanti to cast his former Everwood ingenue Emily VanCamp in the pivotal role of Rebecca, the 20-year-old byproduct of Holly's affair with Nora's late hubby, William. Jump ahead five months and guess who was just tapped to play Rebecca? That's right — Emily freakin' VanCamp! "The truth is, you do deserve some credit," Berlanti concedes. "The candlelight vigil you've had for her in this role really made a difference." Of course, it'd be disingenuous for me to not point out that VanCamp — who makes her debut on Feb. 18 — also had the support of some other influential players, namely Berlanti, fellow executive producer Ken Olin, and VanCamp's TV mom, Patricia Wettig. "Patty is over the moon," declares Olin of his real-life wife and colleague. "She loves her." So how's the woman at the center of thi...
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TVGuide.com just last week broke the news that later this season Patricia Wettig will take a break from playing mistress-with-the-mostess Holly Harper on ABC's Brothers & Sisters (Sundays at 10 pm/ET) in order to reprise her role as Prison Break's Caroline Reynolds, aka Madame President of the United States. At ABC's recent winter press-tour party, the three-time Emmy winner shared with us her take on B&S' Holly, how the deal came down for her to rejoin Prison Break, and who in her own family couldn't believe she chose playing an "other woman" over the ruler of the free world!
TVGuide.com:
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Okay, so I’m going to take a different tack today with the blog. I’m going to try and share what I think about when I dream of Brothers & Sisters -- how it can reflect the country we live in now and serve as a dramatic discussion of American values. We all heard the news that ex-athlete and killer – see civil court conviction – O.J. Simpson has sold a book called If I Did It. And that Rupert Murdoch’s Regan Books is publishing the thing, which seems to be a kind of stunt-like game of literary and legal peek-a-boo. Not only that, Murdoch’s Fox Network is making it into a TV show. It’s all contemptible, of course. Assumes the worst of audiences and readers. Assumes that the populace is so numb that it requires the frisson of cheap titillation the way heroin addicts need their fix.So, what does this have to do with Brothers & Sisters? A lot, actually, in that it begs an examination of our choices and the kind of moral universe we live in. It p...
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In a candid TV Guide interview, Brothers & Sisters' Rachel Griffiths reveals how she is so over Six Feet Under and so into motherhood. (Brothers & Sisters airs Sundays at 10 pm/ET, on ABC.)
TV Guide: Brothers & Sisters is another series about a dysfunctional family. Does it feel familiar? Rachel Griffiths: It is kind of Six Feet Under meets Dynasty.
TV Guide: How do you see your character, Sarah Whedon? Griffiths: She's really beautiful, really warm, really competent. Harvard Business School, loving mother of two, just trying to juggle the whole thing with elegance and depth. She's been
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