(9,00C, ABC, Sunday)

Brothers and Sisters stars Calista Flockheart as a right-wing TV host who, really, really, really believes in those conservative ideas she spouts on TV, y'all. She really, really does, ok? Really. Even though she's from a (mostly) staunch liberal family, she really, really believes in those conservative ideas. Like the rest of 'Merica that's not rich white people from Southern California like her family is. Oh, wait, those rich white people are usually conservatives, too? So what's the champion of the masses thing she's doing? Yeah, I don't know either.

Also: Sally Field is horrible as her distant mother. And from the moment Tom Skerrit came on screen as the father in the first episode you could tell he was going to die. Dave Annable (of Reunion non-fame, though he was awesome) is pretty good, but drew the short-straw, character-wise (Afganistan vet with a drug problem). Ron Rifkin is the sleazy family accountant who was helping Skerrit cover up the fact that they have no money. (And he was quite transparent, too.)

But that brings us to the best part of the show: a blond Rachel Griffiths as the married sister who co-runs the company fruit-business and is trying to get the bottom of why they've got no money (or, rather, why Rifkin is hiding how much money they have). She does a fabulous job. Too bad the plot sucks ass.

Oh, and there's Callista Flockheart, whose conservative talk show lady must decide in the opener between the job she's always wanted ('cause she really believes in those conservative ideals, y'all, no matter how bad her family mocks her for it) and the man she thought she loved but turns out to be self-obsessed. Whatever. Don't care.

The show's big on ideas about how families do and should interact and short on actually being interesting. Other than Griffiths mom-character, trying to negotiate her failing marriage, the fact that she's not doing what she loves any more, and the strangeness of the accounting at her family job, the show's almost unwatchable.

Preliminary grade: D.