Family Tree is a British-American mockumentary-style
television comedy created by Christopher Guest and Jim Piddock. Theseries
premiered on May 12, 2013 on the American pay television network HBO and the
British network BBC Two. Guest, Piddock, Karen Murphy, Deborah Oppenheimer, and
Mario Stylianides serve as the show's executive producers.
Cast
·
Chris O'Dowd as Tom Chadwick, a young man investigating his lineage.
·
Tom Bennett as Pete Stupples, Tom's best friend
·
Nina Conti as Bea Chadwick, Tom's sister
·
Jim Piddock, as Mr. Pfister
·
Michael McKean, as Keith, Tom's father
·
Christopher Fairbank, as Neville St. Aubrey
Other appearances include Carrie
Aizley, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr., Jordan Black, Maria
Blasucci, Matt Griesser, Christopher Guest, Don Lake, Lisa Palfrey, Kevin Pollak, Amy Seimetz, Meera Syal, Ashley Walters, and Fred Willard.
Production
The series is written by Guest
and Piddock and directed by Guest. The
dialogue is improvised by the actors. The
show's first season will consist of 8 episodes.Filming took place in the United
Kingdom and Los Angeles.
Running jokes
Oddball inventions: Tom's father
has invented a shoehorn that can cool or heat up a shoe; a woman whom Tom and
Pete meet has invented a glass, attached around her aged mother's neck, that
allows her to see if she's still breathing.
Awkward dates: Pete keeps setting
up Tom on bad first dates. One woman talks about how dinosaurs still exist;
another is obsessed with bones.
English eccentrics: Tom's sister
uses a hand puppet. Tom often talks to Mr. Pfister, an antique-store owner
trying to make "landmarks in a bottle"; Pfister sends him on to
Neville St. Aubrey, a manic-looking antique photo expert whom Pfister calls
"as mad as a box of frogs".
Old, hackneyed English TV
sitcoms: Tom's father loves to watch DVDs of (made-up) Britcoms, full of broad
stereotypes and Carry On-like
humour. One, There Goes The
Neighbourhood, features an
Archie Bunker-like Anglo-Indian. Another, set in a police station, is called Move Along, Please!
Season 1
(2013)
No.
|
Title
|
Directed
by
|
Written
by
|
Original
airdate
|
|
1
|
"The Box"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
May 12, 2013
|
|
2
|
"Treading the Boards"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
May 19, 2013
|
|
3
|
"The Austerity Games"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
June 2, 2013
|
|
4
|
"Country Life"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
June 9, 2013
|
|
5
|
"Welcome to America"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
June 16, 2013
|
|
6
|
"Civil War"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
June 23, 2013
|
|
7
|
"Indians"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
June 30, 2013
|
|
8
|
"Cowboys"
|
Christopher
Guest
|
Christopher
Guest & Jim Piddock
|
July 7, 2013
|
|
