Deleted scenes, featurettes

Life with brothers and sisters is complicated. They can either be your best friends, worst enemies or both. Throw in a running a winery and The third season of the series that stars Sally Field, Patricia Wettig, Rob Lowe, Alley McBeal star Calista Flockhart and one of the Getty family the fine actor Balthazar Getty continuing to slum it as an actor . ***

During the third season of “Brothers and Sisters” Nora (Field) learns more unsettling truths about her late husband’s behavior. Of the three Walker brothers (Matthew Rhys, Getty and Dave Annable), Justin (Annable) finds out that Rebecca (Emily VanCamp) that he has the hots for ISN’T a blood relative which means he doesn’t have to keep his libido in check. Meanwhile Holly (Wettig) takes a stronger hand in running Ojai Foods the business the late William Walker (Tom Skerritt). ***

The first season of any show will be a bit unsteady as the actors, writers and directors discover what the characters are really about, plot developments that are changed based on the chemistry of the actors on screen, etc. “Brothers and Sisters” was no exception. Luckily, the second season found the show finding its rhythm and the third sees it developing into a terrific ensemble series. ---

Image & Sound:

“Brothers and Sisters” like seasons one and two looks quite good. Colors and skin tones look natural. The anamorphic presentation of the show (it’s shot in 1.78:1 for a widescreen presentation) looks quite nice with good clarity and detail. Detail tends to get lost in some of the darker scenes but overall it looks quite pleasing. ***

Audio sounds extremely good with dialogue clear and front & center for the episodes. That isn’t to suggest that the surround speakers are ignored there’s also some nice activity there but keep in mind this is primarily a drama not an action adventure show. ---

Among the more interesting special features included here is a cast visit to a family owned winery in Ojai, CA. We also get to see the cast goofing around behind-the-scenes and get a sense that the ensemble cast often does feel like “family”. Finally bloopers and deleted scenes round out the extras. While we don’t get any commentary tracks that are worthwhile, what ABC Studios/Buena Vista has provided us with is quite nice. ***

It would be nice the next time around to see any extended episodes that might have been cut for time constraints and also to have one or two involved commentary tracks perhaps to have cast members that are minimally involved in that episode comment on one involving their co-workers.

Final Words: