Domestic saga ups the stakes

Brothers and Sisters. Photo / Supplied

Rob Lowe can't help himself. His Brothers and Sisters co-star, Calista Flockhart, has just entered the room dressed as her character, Kitty, who is forced to wear a pixie-short blond wig following radiation treatment.

"I didn't know your head was shaped quite like ..."

"Like a head," Flockhart says drily.

"I'm seeing her bald for the first time today," he adds. "I'm very excited about it. We can have bald cap sex later if you're interested?"

You can forgive him for a little politically incorrect banter. This season the Walker family, who have so far dealt with everything from death, financial woes, drug addiction, infidelity and divorce, are thrown another curve ball. Still reeling after their marriage woes, new parents Kitty and Robert (Lowe) are forced to re-examine their relationship when Kitty is diagnosed with brain cancer. As much as the story is likely to resonate with thousands of viewers whose lives have been touched by cancer, it acts as a plot device for other themes: change, why you love someone, life priorities.

Flockhart - who ironically appears to be the least fun on today's interview panel - had been hoping for a bit of comedy this season.

"Nothing says funny like cancer," deadpans Dave Annable, who plays Justin.

After reading up on the illness and speaking to people affected by cancer, Flockhart says she feels as prepared as she can be to film the season's more harrowing scenes. It's the technical aspects she finds the most overwhelming. "Actually, it is less time in makeup. But of course Kitty loses her hair, and that's a big deal. It takes two-and-a-half hours to get the bald cap on, which is challenging."

Lowe, who will leave the show this season in an unforeseen event, has also found the story difficult. Five years ago he lost his mother to cancer. And last year his good friend Patrick Swayze succumbed to the disease. Humour, he says, has been a way for him to cope.

"The true winners - regardless of whether they win or lose their battles - face it with such amazing dignity and humour. So I think there is huge room for comedy underneath it. That's what makes it so interesting because the stakes are so high."

The story has also been a huge blow to Sally Field, who plays Nora, Kitty's mother. "I know there are a lot of people in this world going through this but I hate playing it," she says. "I'm a mother, so playing that your child is sick is just the worst thing on Earth. I hate it. It's painful. It's awful. I hate it. I hate it."

Last season, the Walkers said goodbye to Tommy (Balthazar Getty) who fled to Mexico, and welcomed their father's love child, Ryan (Luke Grimes), into the family.

"I feel like the weirdo a little bit and the outcast," says Grimes. "But everybody's so good to me and so nice, it makes up for that."

Sarah is also off-screen for part of the season as actress Rachel Griffiths is on maternity leave. When Sarah returns from a business trip to France she hits the dating scene for the first time since her divorce. Gay couple Kevin (Matthew Rhys) and Scotty (Luke Macfarlane) will face challenges as they contemplate becoming surrogate parents.

With all the time the Walkers will spend in hospital, perhaps it's no surprise Justin is keen to become a doctor.

He'll be ensconced in his studies while planning his wedding to Rebecca, forcing him to question his priorities and sense of identity.

Saul (Ron Rifkin) also has a lot of soul-searching to do when he comes out to the rest of the family as a gay man. Field, whose character has crushes of her own this season, wonders if that will mean he finally gets a love life.

"The poor guy hasn't had sex in a long time. And there's this sick child ..."

Rifkin: "You can have sex when someone is sick."

Field: "No, you can't."

Rifkin: "Yes, you can. It relieves you."

Field: "Oh, for God's sake."

Now in its fourth season, Brothers and Sisters has well and truly lodged itself firmly in that weird place between drama and soap opera or as Field calls it, "heightened reality".

"It's a melodrama and that is an okay thing," says Field.

"What our show has that most serialised melodrama usually doesn't have is comedy."

Lowdown

What: Brothers and Sisters
Where & when: February 15, 9.30pm, TV2