Family Tree sitcom starting on Tuesday 16th Jul BBC2

[kiterunner]

At 10 p.m. Stars Chris O'Dowd. We should probably try not to nitpick too much!

[Jill]

Loved him in the IT Crowd & Moone Boy, and it's got Nina Conti too. It's a Christopher Guest project so look upon it as Spinal Tap for family history

[Kit]

sounds good Kite. Let us know what it's like when you've watched it.

[Shona]

Family Tree follows the world and journey of 30-year-old Tom Chadwick. Having recently lost his job and girlfriend, Tom has a rather unsure sense of his own identity. But when he inherits a mysterious box of belongings from a great aunt that he never met, he starts investigating his family lineage and uncovers a whole world of unusual stories and characters and a growing sense of who he is and who his real family are.

Family Tree is a single-camera, improvisational, mockumentary comedy, a style that Christopher Guest's films have pioneered in the past.

[kiterunner]

I thought they had made a massive mistake with the age and date of the photo and who it was supposed to be, so I was glad it turned out not to be him! Liked the tv stuff and the monkey - I want more monkey next time and much less of Tom's best friend. Also I'm not sure that we need so many people doing bad fake accents.

[Jill]

Looking forward to see how it develops, (loved the spoof tv show Plantagenets that his dad was watching).

[JBee]

Watched it but not sure what to make of it.

[Nell]

The jury is still out on this one, I think.

[kiterunner]

I thought it was so obvious that the man in the photo was English and dressed up; why did they make such a meal out of it? And I don't think much of the date scenes - I know Christopher Guest loves improvisation, but I really think he could have done with a lot more work on those scenes. I get the feeling there is going to be one in every episode. I don't think I would bother watching the rest of the series if it weren't for the subject matter! But then the way he is going about researching his tree is much like the celebrities on WDYTYA - the difference being that on that programme, we know that there are paid researchers behind the scenes doing the work and TV people arranging for the visits to places, meetings with people who can help, etc, and there is no explanation for how he is able to organise all this stuff in this sitcom. And as with a lot of sitcoms nowadays, there are the "mockumentary" scenes every now and again where someone talks to camera, but there is no real sense of what programme they would be making?

[Shona]

Two episodes in and I'm not convinced. I may have had one chuckle during Episode 2, but I can't remember why. When parodies work well, writers and performers alike appear to have a genuine affection for whatever they are sending up. Peter Kay's 'Britain's Got the Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice' worked as a parody of TV talent shows because Peter Kaye loved the shows in question. On Family Tree, I get no sense that they understand or like the subject they are attempting to parody.