Time for another installment of Ask Alan, where I take your questions about the past, present, and future of TV.
First up this week, I was asked what would be the early topics I’d like to see on a TV equivalent of ESPN’s great 30 for 30 documentary series. The world certainly doesn’t lack for behind-the-scenes films about some classics (SNL alone has, like, a dozen), so I tried to stick with either less famous stories or ones where we don’t know the truth about what happened.
From there, we move on to a tradition nearly as old as television itself: actresses getting pregnant and shows deciding to either make their characters pregnant or find ways to hide their condition. I look back at some of the most creative methods, and some — including the one that inspired the question — that probably should have been abandoned in the writers’ room.
Finally, a reader’s accidental transition from the Scrubs series finale to the Scrubs: Med School premiere leads to a discussion of shows that had perfect endings, then kept going in some form, to diminished effect.
I’ll be out the next couple of Fridays, so no Ask Alan for a few weeks, but you can feel free to fill up the mailbag in my absence. As always, you can email me questions at askalan@uproxx.com, or tweet at me with the hashtag #AskAlanDay.