Curb your surprise

In what must be one of the most peculiar revelations about Hollywood's complex family tree, Curb Your Enthusiasm star (and creator/writer) Larry David confirmed he is related to one-time US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. What makes the revelation doubly weird is that David has previously played Sanders on Saturday Night Live. David let the connection slip during a press conference promoting the new season of Curb in the US when he was asked about an upcoming appearance on another series, Finding Your Roots. "They told me not to say anything about it, you just spilled the beans," David said to a reporter who asked about the connection. Sanders is, he added, "some distant cousin, I don't know".

Waiting game

HBO's planned spin-off to Game of Thrones will not appear until at least a year after the final season of the channel's most successful program has aired. The penultimate season is only just getting underway, which means the final season will most likely air in 2018 or 2019, and the spin-off not until at least 2020. HBO has not finalised which of several potential concept it is looking at, but confirmed a new Thrones-themed program was inevitable. Episodes in the final season of Game of Thrones would also be longer than usual, HBO boss Casey Bloys said. "What I don't want is the attention to be drawn from the final season, which I think is going to be epic and amazing," he said.