Brothers & Sisters' Time Jump Reinvent the Show?

For the storytellers of Brothers & Sisters, jumping ahead a year in time offers a jolt of creative energy, but also poses a challenge for the season premiere.

There are a lot of things we need to catch the audience up on, and there's a lot of closure we need to acknowledge and let the audience share in," executive producer David Marshall Grant tells us. "We are doing a lot to deal with that finale and get us into a place where we feel that we understand what happened and move beyond it, just as the Walkers are beginning to move beyond it."

Season 4 ended with a massive car crash that seemed to seal the fate of departing cast member Rob Lowe's Robert McCallister and left William Walker's ex-mistress Holly (Patricia Wettig) in similarly critical condition. Plus, Saul (Ron Rifkin) revealed that he was HIV-positive and Justin (Dave Annable) and Rebecca (Emily VanCamp) came to a crossroads in their young marriage.

The events of the finale are still very fresh in the minds' of the characters, but Grant says the jump in time will quickly allow them to move on and grow. "We are starting these characters in new worlds," he says. "These characters are really trying to reinvent themselves or to get through some really significant hurdles," he says. "I think we're going to really hold these characters' feet to the fire in terms of figuring out what they need to deal with and what they need to get past."