At least Field gets to act her age

Bad as it is, "Brothers & Sisters" is blessedly rare in that it focuses quite a bit on a character as old as Sally Field, who plays the matriarch, Nora. Both Nora and Field are 60. That's not ancient. But TV abhors the aging process.

I talked to Field a few weeks ago, and I agreed with everything she said about this subject.

"I love that they're showing a grown-up woman -- a grown-up adult mother, with grown-up adult children -- and how complicated it is," Field said.

"I haven't seen anybody really explore this territory ... certainly not in American film or television," she said. "Nora's character is, like, being a woman baby boomer heading into her 60s with grown-up children, with a life to begin again" as a widow.

Correct.

Women her age walk up to Field in public and thank her for portraying women like them.

"This is," she said, "absolutely about them."

Now if only the show can stop sucking, everything would be great.

Doug Elfman