Every few years, Christopher Guest pops up to delight us with a hilariously goofy showbiz spoof. From This Is Spinal Tap to Waiting for Guffman to Best in Show, we’ve come to adore the outsize personalities — and familiar troupe of actors, including Eugene Levy, Jennifer Coolidge, Parker Posey, and Michael McKean — that fill every frame of his movies. But it’s been six years since Guest released his last film, 2006’s For Your Consideration. What’s he been up to since then?
Well, aside from doing voice work on SpongeBob SquarePants, he’s apparently been developing a new TV show. Variety reports that HBO has picked up an eight-episode season of Family Tree, which follows “an aimless 30-year-old man who goes on a journey to discover his family roots after inheriting a mysterious box of belongings from his great-aunt.” Although it’s also a comedy, the show sounds like a bit of a departure for Guest, who’s stuck to the mockumentary format in the years since he directed Chris Farley and Matthew Perry in 1998’s Almost Heroes. (Yes, there’s a reason you don’t remember it.) In promising casting news, Family Tree will star the lovable Chris O’Dowd, of Bridesmaids and The IT Crowd fame. The series is set to air simultaneously in the US and the UK, where it will run on BBC 2.