It can't be easy to learn that one's ancestor is a literal horse's ass. But sad-sack Londoner Tom Chadwick takes such news in stride, again quite literally, as he acquires his great-grandfather's horse costume from a long-ago pantomime show, and after trying the rear end on for size, adds it to his collection of quirky family keepsakes.
HBO's droll-to-the-point-of-precious and occasionally delightful Family Tree (Sunday, 10:30/9:30c) follows Tom on an offbeat personal odyssey into his cloudy lineage. "In our clan, family is what disappears when you're not looking at it," says his retired dad, who keeps busy inventing useless objects like a fan for shoe trees. The dad is played by Michael McKean, who like the rest of the cast often talks directly into the camera, mock-documentary/improvisation style. The casting and the format are two of the more obvious signs that Tree is a Christopher Guest production.
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NBC has chosen to pull the upcoming fourth episode of Hannibal in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Variety reports.
The episode, which was slated to air on April 25, depicts children, who have been brainwashed by a woman (Saturday Night Live vet Molly Shannon), murdering other children. Instead, NBC will air...
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It's only natural for AMC's Mad Men to be consumed with thoughts of mortality as it heads further into the turbulent late '60s in its sixth and reportedly next-to-last season of existence. A year ago, the central set piece in the premiere was a surprise birthday party. This time, it's a similarly eventful wake. And that's not the only way in which Sunday's two-hour opener (9/8c), written by series creator Matthew Weiner, drives the death-comes-to-us-all theme home with such sledgehammer relentlessness and obviousness that for the first time, I began to think maybe it is time for this beautifully crafted series to start thinking about giving up the ghost. There's no denying the importance of a show that manages to win four well-deserved best-drama Emmys in its first four times at bat — I didn't hesitate to include Mad Men among the Top 10 in a recent "60 Greatest Dramas of All Time" package in TV Guide Magazine. But does it have to be this self-important?
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Send questions and comments to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!
Question: Are you as I stumped as I am about what makes the NCIS Red Team unique? In last week's episode of NCIS: LA, there was a moment when they were trying to tell a Mexican gunman to put his weapon down and none of them could speak Spanish. Which is odd given they are suppose to be a very mobile unit that goes anywhere, you would think they would be well versed in multiple languages. I was under the impression they were going to be NCIS' version of Seal Team Six. As for casting, the only one of the team that made an impression on me was the Aussie agent Claire Keats (Gillian Alexy). I still think Kelli Giddish would have been a better choice for the lead. Just my thoughts. — Leon
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CBS has renewed a whopping 14 of its shows for the 2013-2014 season, the network announced on Wednesday.
In addition to the previously renewed NCIS and CSI, the network will bring back dramas NCIS: LA, Elementary, Person of Interest, Hawaii Five-0, The Mentalist, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife .
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