Feb 25, 2010 Filed Under: News & Rumors,Who Do You Think You Are? Comments (0)

“Who Do You Think You Are?” — NBC’s version of a British show, debuting Friday March 5 — sounds more like parents admonishing snotty kids than life-altering journeys.

“I was hooked with the first one I saw, and I didn’t know who the person was, and I was riveted,” says Lisa Kudrow, an executive producer and subject of one of the seven episodes tracing people’s ancestry.

“We learn about history, and we don’t think how, on a very intimate level, how it impacts families and sets them on a different course, and how we end up being us because of it,” she says.

In the first episode, Sarah Jessica Parker discovers her roots in the United States stretch back to 1630. Her ancestor, Esther Elwell, accused of being a witch, was remarkably lucky. Days before her trial, the court, which had executed everyone accused, was disbanded.

Like the others who uncover their past, Parker is deeply moved.

“It has changed everything about who I thought I was,” Parker says.

Genealogists provide documents, and celebrities marvel as they examine papers that provide some answers to the question of who they think they are.

Additional episodes focus on Spike Lee, Susan Sarandon, Emmitt Smith, Brooke Shields and Matthew Broderick. As compelling as the documentaries are, the NBC version has its flaws, mainly the annoying tendency to repeat itself as if viewers could not possibly recall what happened before commercial breaks. By repeating so much, it squanders time better used detailing each subject’s heritage. Still, what is shown is incredibly moving.

Kudrow’s great-grandmother was killed when Nazis invaded her town, forced the Jews into a building, made them strip, shot them, then torched the area.

Remarkably, Kudrow not only finds a very old woman who knew her great-grandmother, she also finds a distant relative who had delivered the news of what had happened. Kudrow’s father remembered him telling the story in 1940. When she meets the old man, it’s remarkable.

“It was as hard as I thought it would be,” Kudrow says. 

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