Time for another installment of Ask Alan, as I take your questions about the past, present, and future of TV.
First up this week is some last minute holiday advice, as one of you asked for suggestions of Halloween costumes a trio of friends could wear. Many of my favorites were suggested by my friend Linda Holmes from NPR, and I also leaned on the Uproxx staff and other folks like Todd VanDerWerff to help brainstorm. (One Todd idea that came in too late for use in the video: Dale Cooper, Evil Cooper, Dougie Jones. Though this probably works best if the three friends look at least somewhat similar.)
Next up is an evergreen issue I haven’t talked about in a while: what are my favorite one-season wonder shows. I remember when Matt and I were outlining TV (The Book), we had a long debate about whether one-season shows should be eligible for the top 100. Eventually, we decided we didn’t want a list that didn’t include Freaks and Geeks and some of the other ones I discuss here, so we scored them, but with restrictions to allow for the fact that they never had to go through a decline phase like Dexter or How I Met Your Mother did.
Finally, inspired by my stint as a wedding officiant, a reader recalled the time NBC did a Four Weddings and a Funeral-themed night of programming, and how NewsRadio rebelled against it. Which leads into a discussion of one of the most famous bits of creative rebellion against a network note.
As always, you can email me questions at askalan@uproxx.com, or tweet at me with the hashtag #AskAlanDay.