Time for another installment of Ask Alan, as I take your questions about the past, present, and future of TV.
First up this week, a Scandal fan unhappy with the final season (which I haven’t been watching, having cut the cord a couple of years ago) asked about other shows that particularly angered viewers on their way out the door. This is a subject with which I have plenty of experience, and if I didn’t just devote 10 or 15 minutes to articulating all of my problems with the end of How I Met Your Mother, it’s because I’ve already written plenty about it here and here.
From there, my friend Jon Weisman (former entertainment writer and Dodgers blogger) had a fun what-if question: what shows would I be most excited to recap on a week to week basis if I had been doing this job in the ’80s, the ’70s, or even the ’60s? I tried to limit myself to one drama and one comedy from each decade.
And speaking of decades, our closing question comes from someone about to finish grad school and finally ready to catch up on all the pop culture she missed in the 2010s while she was busy getting a higher education. Rather than ask me for the best shows of this decade, she instead wanted to know what shows best typified the last seven or eight years.
As always, you can email me questions at askalan@uproxx.com, or tweet at me with the hashtag #AskAlanDay.