THE WALKERS TAKE A HIKE

When Governor Eve Kern burst into Senator Robert McCallister's office on Sunday night's two-hour "movie" of 'Brothers & Sisters', I knew the jig was up. Single-handedly she shoved the series into a different TV dimension.

Governor Kern had been seen on the series a while back, when Kevin thought his brother-in-law was having an affair with her. But it turned out Robert was advising her on what she should do with regards to her political career and the possible revelation that she was having an affair with some other man. At the time, I wasn't worried about the ramifications from her appearance; nothing said she had to be the governor of California, which in Toobworld - as in the real world - should be Arnold Schwarzenegger. She could have been the governor from a nearby state - how often does the governor of Oregon crop up in TV shows? - and Robert could have been an old friend of hers whose political advice meant so much to her that she didn't mind making the trek to his state to consult him.

I didn't have that same trouble squeezing Robert into a California Senate seat - so long as one of their Senators is acknowledged to be Barbara Boxer, who has several televersion appearances on various shows to her credit (including 'Murphy Brown' and 'Gilmore Girls'). On the other hand, Dianne Fienstein only has public affairs programming appearances and so we could consider her a non-entity so far as Toobworld is concerned and that Robert held her seat instead.

But we can't do that with Governor Eve Kern; "the Governator" is too well-known in the job in Sacramento and across the nation. He's catnip to TV writers who want to get off a reference about him, jokingly or otherwise.

So it's off to another TV dimension for 'Brothers & Sisters'. (Never would have had this problem if they didn't aim so high with their political ambitions for the character of Rob McCallister. What? A state Senator position would have been too trivial for his ambitions?)

When it came to the eventual confrontation between Robert and the Governor, as to whether or not he should challenge the incumbent for the nomination, it could have all been handled with a phone call. That way we never had to see who Robert was talking to and we could have assumed it was Ahnuld. Of course, that might not have added one of the stress factor needed leading up to his heart attack......

So it's bye-bye to 'Brothers & Sisters' from the main Toobworld. But where to send it? There are two good options and they depend on who currently holds the presidency as far as the show is concerned.

If they think Obama won the election that Robert had to drop out of, then they could share the same dimension as 'Studio 60: Live On The Sunset Strip'. That had to go because it just made too many Zonks with references to other TV shows and even bringing on the actors from those shows as themselves, not their characters. 'Studio 60' and 'Brothers & Sisters' share something in common - both of them have a TV network called NBS.

Or if their president is somebody unnamed but fictional, we could add them to the number of shows that share the 'West Wing' TV dimension. Enough time has passed since that went off the air so that California could have a new senator and a new governor.

Either way, the Walkers are going to be in Sorkin territory. I hope they realize they'll have to live up to the family name with the way he handles conversations!

BCnU!
Toby O'B