Dysfunctional family

ABC’s ‘‘Brothers & Sisters’’ is a fine upstanding member of the Quality Network TV Club. The drama, created by acclaimed playwright Jon Robin Baitz and TV whiz kid Greg Berlanti, is built on real-life matters such as the Iraq war and fierce political partisanship. And the cast is a full court of TV royalty, with two-time Oscar winner Sally Field as the queen. People I respect say they truly love and admire this series, including my own brother, who calls it a lighter version of HBO’s rich ‘‘Six Feet Under.’’

So why do I dislike this show so very much? Every time someone talks about how greatly ‘‘Brothers & Sisters’’ has improved since its rocky premiere last year, I wonder why I can’t see the brilliance, the honesty, and the familial wisdom. In fact, the Sunday night series makes me cringe from start to finish, as every emotional moment rings utterly false and the plot twists come a-charging at us from miles away. I heartily revere Cringe TV — Save ‘‘The Comeback’’! — but this show inspires the kind of cringing that yields only annoyance and wrinkles.

The most immediate and obvious problem for me is the Great ‘‘Brothers & Sisters’’ Casting Botch. And I’m not only referring to the casting of Field, whose overacting as Nora Walker is hoisting her into the ‘‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’’ realm of demented camp as she brings ‘‘Medea’’-size affect to a ‘‘Falcon Crest’’-size story. She doesn’t adjust for the intimacy of the small screen as her Nora WORRIES ABOUT HER CHILDREN. Field won an Emmy for the performance, but I think that’s because she delivers an Emmy-baiting performance and those submissive Emmy voters always like to be told what to do.

And no, the casting botch isn’t just about Dave Annable, a likable actor woefully miscast as Justin Walker, the soldier brother who has just returned from Iraq with a debilitating knee injury. Justin is meant to be a troubled dude with addiction and responsibility problems, but Annable looks too wholesome to drive it home. Even now, with his post-war Matthew Fox scruff, he seems like a refugee from ‘‘Dawson’s Creek.’’ At least we know Annable is healthy: before Justin took pain meds, Annable got quite the workout exaggeratedly wincing with aerobic fervor.

The Great Casting Botch is that I just can’t believe this collection of people are part of the same family, particularly when it comes to Calista Flockhart as Kitty. Field is Flockhart’s mother? Huh? They come across more like sisters — adopted, well-preserved sisters. Rachel Griffiths is Flockhart’s sister and Field’s daughter? Yeah right. The pairings on ‘‘Brothers & Sisters’’ just don’t click with natural chemistry, and that’s hard to overlook on a show that relies on family and romantic dynamics for its ballast.

The odd merging of the rubbery-faced Flockhart with the seemingly un-aging Rob Lowe still makes me think, ‘‘Now that’s just wrong.’’

The plotting feels wrong to me, too. I don’t expect every soap opera to constantly discover new ways to surprise me. I can enjoy familiar tales of adultery, illegitimate children, and drug abuse, when they unfold with grace and freshness, as they do on ‘‘Friday Night Lights,’’ or when they are deployed with scandalous humor, as they are on ‘‘Dirty Sexy Money.’’

But ‘‘Brothers & Sisters’’ achieves a new level of unsubtlety when it comes to setting up what will happen next. Whenever a new character enters a scene, you can easily anticipate why. The storylines are constructed from basic formulas — such as Hot New Office Manager + Tommy’s Troubled Marriage = Affair That Will Haunt Him. Or the Justin-addiction business. OK, so Justin doesn’t want to go on pain meds because he’s an addict, but Nora bullies him into taking the drugs. Gee, do you think he’s going to get addicted? Gee, do you think we’ll have to suffer the endless gyrations of Nora’s guilt complex when that happens?

Beyond all this, though, ‘‘Brothers & Sisters’’ makes me feel obligated to love it, since it’s such a promiscuously ‘‘correct’’ drama. And that pressure irritates me. Like Lowe, who finally has a successful show willing to make him into the big hero (Republican senator Robert McCallister), the proceedings carry with them the air of sanctimony.

In one self-righteous scene a few weeks back, a hate-mongering conservative radio DJ was attacking both Nora’s antiwar stance and Kitty and Robert’s gay brothers. That created a situation where Kitty — one of the conservative characters — had to rush onto the air to her family’s defense. I was supposed to be cheering for the Walkers, for peace and acceptance and love, but it was all too easy, too slippery. I felt like the show was cheating. Hey, I’m down with many of the social and political points that ‘‘Brothers & Sisters’’ makes, but less so when they are made with no nuance or complexity.

The war, and political divides, are presented with nearly the same primitiveness as they were on ‘‘American Dreams,’’ NBC’s family drama about the 1960s. This is what Justin says about being newly back from Iraq: ‘‘Everyone here, they don’t know what I saw. They don’t know what people are capable of, you know? I’m just not sure I’ll be able to forget.’’

That’s a nice enough glimpse into the mind of a soldier at home. But, after so many decades of awareness of the complicated plight of returning veterans, it’s also kind of shallow, isn’t it? The show takes on this huge, timely state of mind, reduces it to truism, and then pats itself on the back.

At least I don’t have to pat it on the back, too.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.