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Thursday 21 January 2010

"Brothers & Sisters" - new run starts tonight on More4

(Please see UPDATE at end)

I started watching Brothers & Sisters two or three years ago and quickly became 'addicted' to it - series 4 of the show is about to begin this evening on More4 at 9pm (with repeats at midnight, next Monday at 11.05pm and on Tuesday at 3am). It's great to see it is coming back!

In fact a couple of weeks ago, before this week's issue of Radio Times came out (geddit? - lol) I had already been searching around on YouTube for clips of the new series, which has already aired in the US, and there are quite a few to choose from, but I won't spoil it for other fans by including any of those here, but here's one of my favourite scenes from an earlier series, when Kevin (Matthew Rhys) goes down on one knee to propose to Scotty (Luke Macfarlane):



- I kind of knew already that Luke is Canadian, and a jolly attractive one, but it had inexplicably escaped my attention that Matthew is not American, but Welsh, until I read a preview of the show today in the Telegraph; according to the interview with both actors on which the preview is based, Luke said that Matthew is a very talented mimic and is able to pass himself off not only as American, but as several different kinds of Canadian, too, with their different regional accents, even down to specific hockey teams - perhaps there was a little hyperbole there? No matter, they are both talented actors and very 'pleasant on the eye'. Apart from this 'gay' interest, there are a lot of other talented and well-known actors in the show - Calista ('Sex in the City') Flockart, Sally Field as the 'mother hen' of the Walker clan, Rob Lowe as the [erstwhile] love-interest for the character played by Calista Flockart and Rachel Griffiths (who plays 'Sarah' - formerly of the equally-magical 'Six Feet Under').

Unlike 'Sex and the City', which I found wet in the extreme (sorry to its many fans out there!), I think Brothers & Sisters has a somewhat wider audience appeal. Of course everyone in the show, male and female, is attractive or charismatic and it deals with people in a comfortable middle-class setting, basically obsessing about themselves - although their finances have been on a roller-coaster at various times none of that sordid detail is allowed to get in the way too much of their fundamental narcissism. Basically it's a great deal closer to my life-experience than some other shows I might mention, if of course shallow. But I don't, frankly, want to see how people live on 'sink estates' in an entertainment show as I really don't have anything in common with the people they portray - I'm happy enough to watch shows featuring such realities in documentaries or 'reality' shows, but on my time off I want something easier to identify with - and which gay man would not want to identify with 'Kevin' or 'Scotty'? Sigh ...

PS/ I neither know, nor do I care, whether Luke Macfarlane and/or Matthew Rhys are 'gay' in real life, but I do think they play the roles assigned to them very well, whatever their personal circumstances - they are actors. No-one should confuse a TV show with real life.

UPDATE (Friday 14JAN2011 16.00 GMT) Series 5 will begin its run in the UK on Thursday 20 Janaury 2011 at 10pm on More4 - read more here.

2 comments:

  1. That would be great if I had a tele.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi James

    Assuming you're in the UK (not sure if it works abroad) you should be able to watch many Channel4 and its sister channels' output using their online 'catch-up' facility.

    Same of course with the BBC, ITV and Five.

    ReplyDelete

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