I like this show, yes it is sappy and yes the kids are annoying and yes the mistress & brother relationship to gain the "password" is annoying BUT isnt TV an escape from reality???

Sure, TV is an escape.. but does it have to be utterly rediculous too? ;)

I've read what other people have written about this show and I thought, geez, I must be missing something. I'm glad to know someone else is seeing what I'm seeing: one of the most boring, schlocky, annoying shows ever on television. And what a shame too, all that talent weighed down by clunky, cumbersome dialogue and who-cares situations.

Can Calista Flockhart please try to stop speaking in that monotone? Just try. And those "I'm a conservative, God and country Republican" lines. Good gracious. Who's writing this show Roger Ailes.

Kill it now I say. Put it and those poor actors out of this misery.

Just when there was a stand-in columnist who was twenty times better than Havrilesly...ah, well, at least she's going to have a greater talent pool from which she can draw new syncopants, because the Republicans lost so heavily in the election. Maybe even Rummy will be reduced to hanging around her Starbucks, earning a few sheckels by kissing her...feet.

Insulting "Brothers and Sisters" is ugly, though; it's insulting the dead. The only novelty in this show, over its 1970's kindred like "Dynasty" and "Dallas," is that instead of trying to carve a part of the rich people's fortune, the rich people are trying to hide that their patriarch was more broke than Michael Jackson. I can even call it a dramatic version of "The Pruitts of South Hampton" a.k.a. "The Phyllis Diller Show," about a rich broad who was secretly broke. (Which, if money was intellectual honesty and heart, would be a perfect parallel to Havrilesky.)

"Brothers and Sisters" will probably buy it by January. "Six Degrees" is already on hiatus, possibly never to return (unless they get a story behind it at least as compelling as that behind "Heroes," which they probably won't.) That makes two hours of ABC prime time that will probably go to old Disney movies.

... I love your work.

It's lovely to have Heather back. And the Heather-haters, of course, what WERE you poor dears doing over the last month???? Go have babies so you can legitimately feel infinitely superior to those of us who enjoy long-winded, wandering columns that suddenly and viciously nail that annoying David Carouso. Go get him, Heather.

Off to TiVo Top Chef.

Well, I have to agree. This is truly a fantasy family. Perhaps, at least, the writers will use the election results to "kick-up" up the humor. And Ally is back. She surfaces everytime Ms. Flockhart's character interacts with a man. The most realistic relationship is the one between the gay lawyer and his--what else--table-waiting boyfreind. Still, having said all that, it is a fun way to waste an hour.

Here's a great example of television execs being duped into the same trap as mass marketers,

24 hour news commentators, and online magazines.

The myth continues that half of America wants softball, James Dobson-friendly fluff, while the other half wants gratuitous trash or pro-alternative lifestyle commentary.

The truth is, these people have begun to believe an over-generalized lie of their own creation. Americans aren't as stupid as these people pretend.

That's why quality content, character development, and production will always trump over-editorialized crap at both ends of the spectrum.

Glad to have you back!

And yeah, Top Chef is awesome. You should definitely go back and watch Season 1...oh Harold.

I wanted to watch this show because I love Rachel Griffiths from her work in "Six Feet Under". But I also loved Felicity Huffman in "Sports Night", which led me to watching the first six episodes of "Desperate Housewives" - and while Felicity is the best thing in that show, the writing is dreadful and the plots are incoherent and the idea of a character arc is unknown. So I think I'll pass on "Brothers and Sisters". Hopefully it'll get cancelled and Rachel will get a really good series on HBO.

Oh, and here's a glaring typo - it's Fonzie, not Fonzy.

Great to have you back, Heather! So what have you named the little bundle of sleep deprivation? Cara Thrace Havrilesky? Claire Fisher Havrilesky? Or perhaps Tyra Banks Havri - well you get the point. So what is it? We chickens need to know!

I'm proud to say that I haven't wasted my time watching "Brothers & Sisters". :)

How to review "Top Chef", however, is a really a conundrum, and I think that HH missed discussing a major point.

On one hand, "Top Chef" is superior to many other competitive reality TV shows. Just like "Project Runway" (or "Project Catwalk"), the tasks, while more than a little offbeat, challenge the creative and professional skills of contestants that really know what they're doing. (In most cases.) Unlike "The Apprentice", it is actually based on the skills in their trade, and when compared to "Hell's Kitchen", it seems less gratuitously masochistic and more... well... mature.

But the problem is more that it is impossible for the viewers at home to judge the value of the results with "Top Chef". When you watch "Project Runway" you can look at the designs and feel like you can evaluate them reasonably well, even as an amateur. You may not get the entire runway Q&A period, and you might not get a close-up look at the quality of construction, but you can kinda get the sense of whether the garment works or not.

Unfortunately, you don't get that with "Top Chef". Without Smell-o-Vision (or Taste-o-Vision) on hand, you just can't ruthlessly critique turkey meatballs or peculiar Twinkie concoctions with the same gusto as you could with the train wrecks that Vincent produced. Looking at a well-presented dish is great and some of them on the show to date have truly been works of art, mind you. But how do we *really* know that certain things are too salty or too bland? And how can we feel like someone has been robbed if we can't really judge the taste for ourselves?

I'm hoping that "Top Hair" comes out a little bit better. (At least it'll be a nice antidote to the insufferable, obnoxious, awful "Blow Out".) But I'm *really* holding out hope that they extend the concept to other creative professions, too. Maybe "Top Tax Audit" or "Top Dental Work" wouldn't quite fly, but what about "Top Ad Campaign"? "Top Video Game"? "Top Lawn Furniture"?