Despite cast changes, rewrites, and producer musical chairs, this brainy soap checks in with promise. Can any single California family in the food-distribution business contain patriarch Tom Skerritt, matriarch Sally Field, uncle Ron Rifkin, and siblings Rachel Griffiths, Balthazar Getty, and Calista Flockhart? Especially if Tom’s having an affair, Ron is fiddling with the books, bleeding-heart Sally won’t talk to right-wing radio host Calista, and there’s a dead body in the swimming pool? One of the executive producers here is playwright Jon Robin Baitz, and TV is smarter just because he’s watching it, let alone making it.

ABC, premieres September 24, 10 P.M.

Related:

• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: Sep 25, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!