At which point one of the critics did something surprisingly sensible — she read verbatim from what abc.com had to say about the show.

"This is what ABC has got on its public Web site: 'The adult children of Henry Walker, along with their respective families, have gathered to celebrate a birthday. What they don't know is that tonight the patriarch will die,' " she read.

Which should have cleared all this up rather simply. And, quite obviously, did.

But Olin still couldn't respond to a direct question about whether Skerritt portrays the soon-to-be-late patriarch of the family.

"I don't know," he said. "That's what they said. They are my bosses. If that's what it says, that's what it says."

Press-tour meltdown can be a frightening thing.

ABC WOULD SEEM to have legitimate reasons for not showing us the "Brothers & Sisters" pilot — what with the recasting and reshooting.

But in the past 16 years, no series that wasn't shown to critics before or during press tour has ever succeeded.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com