Season One

Season One of Brothers and Sisters, an American serialized family- drama television series created by Jon Robin Baitz, began airing on September 24 2004 on ABC. Brothers and Sisters follows the lives of The Walker Family who include: Nora Walker, her brother Saul and her children Sarah , Kitty, Tommy, Kevin and Justin. The series began with the death of Nora's husband William Walker and follows the discovery that he had a twenty year affair with Holly Harper and the fact that had a child together that no one knew about named Rebecca. As well as this central plot bringing the family together, each character must deal with the events of their personal lives.

Sarah, Tommy, and Saul, who are the most involved people with the family business, learn that William embezzled the company's funds. The business revelation also reveales two major revelations on the personal front: William had a mistress, Holly Harper (Patricia Wettig) whom he kept for decades, and the couple were believed to have had a child, Rebecca (Emily VanCamp).

Most of the season focuses on Rebecca and her integration into the Walker family. Her mother Holly also becomes involved as she goes into business with Tommy to open 'Walker Landing,' a vineyard.

At the same time Sarah's marriage hits the rocks and is made worse after her husband, Joe, kisses Rebecca. Tommy discovers he is sterile, which leads to he and his wife, Julia, turning to his brothers for support as possible surrogates. Julia gives birth to premature twins William and Elizabeth, but tragedy strikes and only Elizabeth survives.

Kevin has a short-term relationship with Scotty before beginning a secret fling with Chad Barry, a TV star who cannot admit to his sexuality. Tensions rise between him and his sister Kitty when she takes a job with Senator Robert McCallister (Rob Lowe) as he does not support gay marriage. Kevin is later introduced to Jason, Robert's gay brother, and they begin a relationship.

Kitty moves back in with her mother, causing unresolved issues between the two of them to come to the surface. She also begins a new job as co-host on a politics show 'Red White and Blue' and begins a relationship with fellow host, Warren. When she interviews Senator Robert McCallister, he offers her a job on his communications staff. After fighting it for months, they finally acknowledge their feelings for each other and become engaged at the end of the season.

Justin struggles with his drug addiction and his family's lack of faith in him; however, as the season progresses, he decides to stay clean and enters rehab. He also has an on again/off again relationship with an old high school friend and short time boss Tyler. He, out of all the brothers and sisters, spends more time with Rebecca and becomes closest to her. Later in the season he receives a letter from the army ordering him to return to active duty, and asks his brother Kevin to help him out of it.

This season averaged at 12.2million viewers - based on average total viewers each episode. This ranked the show at #37. In the UK the show averaged at around 2.2million viewers and then settled to around 600,000.