Driad

I'd be pleased if we never saw the family again. Would be fun to hear Arm Candy's latest accomplishments occasionally. "Too bad I have to be in Argentina on Tuesday; I'll miss seeing him walk a tightrope from Mount Everest to K2. At least I'll be home in time to hear him perform all four parts of the string quartet he wrote."

We know that Howard's master's degree is from MIT, but where did he go for undergrad?

AIUI, many NA groups took in non-NAs, ranging from children captured in raids to people escaping from slavery. So it was possible to be culturally NA without being genetically NA.

About Dre's mother saying she was Zulu and Native American -- didn't Oprah Winfrey say she thought she had Zulu ancestry but the DNA test showed she doesn't? Henry Louis Gates, on his "Finding Your Roots" show, has said that many African Americans think they have Native American ancestry but most do not actually have it according to DNA tests.

The DNA of the Jewish guests was tested. The DNA thread has a link to an article.

It aired on the east coast of the US, at least where I am. So if you would like to start a discussion, go ahead!

Yes, that is the scheduled episode. We'll see whether it will actually air tonight. Some schedule sites have removed BBT from the grid.

Has anyone heard whether we will see an episode tonight? President Obama is scheduled to speak about immigration at 8 PM Eastern time. CBS might just delay all the evening shows, or skip BBT, or skip one of the other sitcoms. If they skip a show on the east coast, historically they will air a rerun of that show in other time zones rather than a new ep. Hoping that the speech is short and we can see BBT. (I don't watch any of the other sitcoms.)

A little peeve: Walter having to tell the team "You figure out how they built the bomb, you analyze the software," or whatever. These people know their specialties. It feels as if the writers have to keep reminding us that Walter is the team leader. It would be more realistic to me if they chime in "I'll do X" etc. and Walter would occasionally say "The most important thing is Y, do that first."

Jay's complaints about spending too much time with the other two families would have sounded better it any of the families had seen each other in the past several episodes.

For Boston viewers --- WBZ TV has Jeopardy scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 PM. Description: "The 2014 Tournament of Champions concludes with the final championship round. The winner receives a grand prize of $250,000." I hope this is true. WBZ loves to preempt Jeopardy for football, elections, shiny things, etc.

The PBS site for this show is http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/ "Behind the Scenes" has many resources including DNA articles.

My family has a line of Puritan ancestors, and our saying is that the Puritans came to America to have the freedom to persecute other people for their religion. And a riddle -- Q: If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? A: Pilgrims.

The wardrobe department at least chose the mathematician's shirt well. Not that it was attractive, but it's what he would likely have worn in college, and those shirts have so much polyester that they last many years. If he had a good rayon shirt he might have kept it on.

The "Stop the execution!" scene was not in the book. IIRC, the confession appeared right as the trial ended, and the judge reversed the conviction in the courtroom.

From CeCe Moore: "The episode that aired last week with Carole King, Alan Dershowitz and Tony Kushner did not include any DNA research, but that doesn’t mean that I hesitated to delve into their genetic genealogy. In fact, a short segment featuring Alan is included in the special DNA-themed last episode scheduled to air on November 25." more at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/blog/ashkenazi-jewish-dna-potential-piece-together-shattered-family-branches/ "Ashkenazi Jewish DNA and the Potential to Piece Together Shattered Family Branches"

Since Kitty has an animal name anyway, can we call her Poochie? http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Poochie Maybe she will have the same story line.

Has anyone heard the name Nitoja or Natja? According to a friend's family's oral history, their enslaved ancestress had that name. She was brought to the US as a girl in the 1840s. Of course her name may not have been exactly that, but likely a similar name.

If we're listing all the food that ever appeared in TWW, please include a pot of chili and a five-gallon tub of ice cream with two spoons.

At the time of the 2000 election (Bush, Gore, Florida, Supreme Court) I was on a mailing list discussing TWW. The consensus was that if this had been an episode of TWW, critics would have panned it for being unrealistic.

CeCe Moore wrote: Last week on Finding Your Roots, none of the DNA evidence we used to support the relationship between Valerie Jarrett's slave ancestor Henry Taylor and his slaveholder was in the episode, so I have written about it here. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/blog/tracing-descent-slave-owner-dna/

This may be the best thread for this question -- Why call the characters Holmes and Watson? The trope of brilliant detective and assistant has been done many times, even outside the crime field (see House, MD). Making them Holmes and Watson probably got the show more attention at the beginning, but even then it seemed to me that the creators were patting themselves on the back for cleverly setting the show in the present day and making Holmes a woman, as if those had not been done before. Nowadays, it mostly leads to useless messages (like this one) wondering about this question or comparing Elementary to canon Conan Doyle or to BBC Sherlock. I like this show (usually) but I might like it better if they had given the characters other names and avoided the excess baggage.

The actor who voices Linda also does the tall blonde girl at school, right? If so, I wish he could make the voices a bit more different. I found it distracting. Otherwise, fine episode. Glad to have BB back.

Have they said how soon the election is? I could understand some points better if I knew that. Surely it's not tomorrow, and a year seems too long. What month or season is it in TGW universe? Had the same problem when Peter ran for governor.

If Ryan were a real person I would worry about his having a second job. Fatigue can be dangerous for a detective. We'll see if this comes up in a later episode.