Time for another installment of Ask Alan, as I take your questions about the past, present, and future of TV.
Our first episode of 2018 opens with a subject I only noticed a couple of years ago, but that has distracted me ever since: Are Elizabeth and Philip on The Americans named after Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip of England (and now of The Crown)? I assumed this had come up in one of the many interviews Fields and Weisberg have given over The Americans‘ run, but apparently it hadn’t, so I asked them.
After that, I’m once again asked to rank things — in this case, The Wire and all of David Simon’s other TV shows — and I already regret, like, half of the choices. The guy’s been responsible for a lot of great TV over the last 20 years!
We close things out with a discussion of what happens to FX if/when Disney’s acquisition of it and much of the current Fox empire goes through in a year or two. Will John Landgraf, aka the Mayor of Television, wind up Governor of Television, or abandon his lofty public post for another job altogether?
As always, you can email me questions at askalan@uproxx.com, or tweet at me with the hashtag #AskAlanDay.