Family Tree

Potentially the best new comedy series of this season.

It is still a distinctly Guest production: often poky, always charmingly whimsical and, from time to time, so astoundingly funny you seem to have shot into a distant stratosphere of pure comedy. [13 May 2013, p.45]

Tom Chadwick is a man with a fixation that’s both reasonable and relatable, and he becomes our tour guide to the familiar, funny Christopher Guest worldview.

The freshest take on the single-camera mockumentary since “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Family Tree is less belly-laugh funny than wry and occasionally poignant.

Along the way, Tom becomes briefly attached to potential ancestors who don't pan out or aren't quite what they first seem--a not unfamiliar experience is frequently rendered funny by just a small dollop of strangeness. Sometimes it's more than a dollop, but Family Tree doesn't dwell so long on any single absurdity to make anyone uncomfortable.

In the wonderful Family Tree, hangdog Chris O'Dowd, finding his life stalled after losing a girlfriend and a job in short order, goes in search of his roots and relatives.

[Genealogy] may not seem like a particularly robust thread for an eight-part series, but O’Dowd, Guest and a wonderful cast of deadpan actors and improv experts spin it into a tapestry of cheery laughter.

Over the first four episodes, Family Tree doesn’t have the gut-busting, excruciatingly funny moments of Guest’s movies--no Stonehenge here--but it adds a warmth to the usual pathos of his characters, and O’Dowd’s hangdog charm is a good match for the story.

As with a number of moments in the completely enjoyable Family Tree, I’m not sure how the actors kept themselves from laughing.

Family Tree is addictively silly stuff.

Tree is not the master at his best--it's one of those light entertainments that pass by without leaving much of a mark. But it's good-hearted and amusing.

It helps to be a fan of Christopher Guest--the genius mockumentarian responsible for movies like “Best in Show” and “Waiting for Guffman”--if you’re going to love his new HBO series, Family Tree.

Like the characters who occupy Guest's best work, particularly A Mighty Wind, Tom and his friends have real stature, and the jokes often gracefully comment on their yearning to puncture the bubbles of their own self-concern to connect to others.

Fortunately, Family Tree doesn't need its mockumentary monkey business to be affecting; it's stuffed with poignant, diverting treasure.

Just as "A Mighty Wind" and "Waiting for Guffman" aren't like traditional movies, "Family Tree" isn't like traditional sitcoms, in that there isn't a traditional setup-punch-line structure to it. It does evoke comedies such as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Arrested Development," though, where the humor is more incremental, character-based and cumulative.

The television mockumentary format may be reaching oversaturation. But for Family Tree, the result is nonetheless appealing, what I like to call "tea-cozy television"--nothing too precious or too taxing, but comforting to watch all the same.

This is a very quirky, specific world that could repel the very people who might love it. It's a slow go but if you're not in a hurry, it might be worth dropping by.

This series won’t change the world, or even the world of TV comedy, but it is an intriguing diversion.

Family Tree can feel a little loose and inconsequential.... But that also means that we get to spend more time with Mr. Guest’s crack cast of improvisers and there are moments in each half-hour that pay off.

Like many HBO half-hours, this is a slow, slow burn to get to a payoff. The smiles here are of recognition that even the most ordinary families can have wonderfully strange roots.

While the show is full of comic highs and witty insight, it isn't funny all the time because some of the jokes are disappointingly crude.

Guest has assembled a worthy and adept ensemble of oddballs. But it remains to be seen if the story itself will catch on.

If the plot is thin, the show does offer other pleasures, including the actors’ improv skills, revealed in subtle and hilarious flashes of genius.

Sunday's premiere is pretty light on laughs. A couple of moments inspire guffaws but they are few and far between. The show's second episode offers more humor.

Guest’s approach is as much about creating atmosphere and fostering discomfort as it is about belly laughs, but there’s a difference between being droll and positively arid.