Questions and answers: TV series

Revise TV series: here is a selection of questions of every level, with the answer and an explanation. To test yourself without seeing the answers, play the quizzes.

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Very easy

In which series do six friends meet at the Central Perk café?

Answer : Friends

Friends aired on NBC from 1994 to 2004. Central Perk, with its big orange couch, is the group's regular hangout in New York.

In which fictional town does the Simpson family live?

Answer : Springfield

Springfield is a very common place name in the United States, which lets Matt Groening avoid ever pinning the town down to a single state.

Which fantasy series is based on the novels of George R. R. Martin?

Answer : Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones adapts Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels and is set on the continents of Westeros and Essos.

What is Walter White's job at the start of Breaking Bad?

Answer : Chemistry teacher

Walter White teaches chemistry at a high school in Albuquerque until a cancer diagnosis pushes him to make drugs to secure his family's future.

In Stranger Things, what is the nickname of the girl with telekinetic powers?

Answer : Eleven

She is called Eleven because of the number tattooed on her wrist, and she was raised in a secret government laboratory.

What do we call a humorous series with episodes of about twenty minutes?

Answer : A sitcom

Sitcom is short for situation comedy: a format born on radio and then American television, often built around a small group of characters and a recurring set.

In which city is the French soap opera Plus belle la vie set?

Answer : Marseille

Broadcast on France 3 from 2004 to 2022, the series takes place in the fictional Mistral district of Marseille and was filmed in studios in that city.

Which physicist, played by Jim Parsons, is one of the heroes of The Big Bang Theory?

Answer : Sheldon Cooper

Sheldon Cooper, a brilliant theoretical physicist who is hopelessly awkward in social situations, earned Jim Parsons four Emmy Awards for the role.

Easy

Which British actor plays Dr. House?

Answer : Hugh Laurie

Hugh Laurie, first known for comic roles in Britain, played House for eight seasons while keeping an American accent throughout the series.

Who created the animated series The Simpsons?

Answer : Matt Groening

Matt Groening drew the Simpson family for short TV sketches before turning them into a full series, which became a benchmark for animated social satire.

Which house of Westeros has a direwolf as its emblem?

Answer : Stark

The Starks, lords of the North, bear a direwolf as their sigil, and each of their children is given a pup of that species at the start of the story.

In which US state is Breaking Bad set?

Answer : New Mexico

The story takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the show was also filmed; the region's desert landscapes are part of its visual identity.

What event kicks off the story of the series Lost?

Answer : An airliner crash

In Lost, an airliner flying from Sydney to Los Angeles crashes on a Pacific island, and the survivors gradually discover that it hides many mysteries.

How many main characters make up the group of friends in Friends?

Answer : Six

Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross make up the group. The show ran for ten seasons on NBC between 1994 and 2004.

Which French actor plays Assane Diop in the series Lupin?

Answer : Omar Sy

Assane Diop, inspired by the gentleman thief created by Maurice Leblanc, is played by Omar Sy. The French-language series has streamed on Netflix since 2021.

In which fictional Indiana town is Stranger Things set?

Answer : Hawkins

Hawkins, a small Indiana town in the 1980s, hosts a secret government laboratory that is behind the supernatural events striking its residents.

Medium

Who created the series Friends?

Answer : David Crane and Marta Kauffman

David Crane and Marta Kauffman developed Friends for NBC. The project went through several working titles, including Insomnia Cafe, before becoming Friends in 1994.

In which year did Game of Thrones first air?

Answer : 2011

The first episode aired in April 2011 and the series ended in 2019 after eight seasons.

On which American cable channel did The Sopranos air?

Answer : HBO

Airing from 1999 to 2007 on HBO, David Chase's series helped turn cable television into a creative arena as prestigious as cinema.

Who is the creator of Breaking Bad?

Answer : Vince Gilligan

Vince Gilligan, a former X-Files writer, imagined Walter White as an ordinary man who becomes a criminal. The show aired on AMC from 2008 to 2013.

What is the number of the flight that crashes at the start of Lost?

Answer : Oceanic 815

Oceanic Flight 815, between Sydney and Los Angeles, breaks apart in mid-air. The number 815 and the sequence 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 keep recurring in the story.

In which year did The Simpsons become a full series on the Fox network?

Answer : 1989

After shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show starting in 1987, the family got its own series in December 1989 with a Christmas episode.

What job do the main characters of the French series Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent) have?

Answer : Talent agents

The French title refers to the commission agents take on their clients' fees. The series, aired on France 2 since 2015, features real stars playing themselves.

Which American award, symbolised by a statuette of a winged woman holding an atom, honours television?

Answer : The Emmy Awards

The Emmy Awards date back to 1949; the name comes from Immy, a nickname for the image orthicon tube in television cameras, feminised into Emmy.

Hard

Which duo created Twin Peaks, first aired in 1990?

Answer : David Lynch and Mark Frost

Director David Lynch and writer Mark Frost came up with the investigation into the death of Laura Palmer, a show that influenced many later TV dramas.

In which American city is The Wire set?

Answer : Baltimore

Created by David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter, the series explores the city through its police, drug trade, port, politics, schools and press.

On which New York avenue is the advertising agency of Mad Men located?

Answer : Madison Avenue

The title comes from the slang for advertising men of Madison Avenue, the Manhattan street where major agencies clustered in the 1960s, the decade the show depicts.

Which creator of the French series Kaamelott also plays King Arthur himself?

Answer : Alexandre Astier

Alexandre Astier writes, directs, composes the music and plays Arthur in Kaamelott, a parody of Arthurian legend that began airing on M6 in 2005.

Who co-created the sitcom Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld?

Answer : Larry David

Larry David inspired the character George Costanza and later created Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which he plays a version of himself.

What is the first name of FBI agent Mulder in The X-Files?

Answer : Fox

Fox Mulder investigates the FBI's unsolved cases alongside his partner Dana Scully. The series, launched in 1993, was created by Chris Carter.

Which screenwriter created the series Downton Abbey?

Answer : Julian Fellowes

Julian Fellowes, who also won an Oscar for the screenplay of Gosford Park, imagined the lives of the Crawleys and their servants in an English country house of the early twentieth century.

In which year did the BBC broadcast the first episode of Doctor Who?

Answer : 1963

Doctor Who began in November 1963, the day after the assassination of President Kennedy. After a long break, the series was revived in 2005.

Expert

Which writer created and hosted The Twilight Zone, which began in 1959?

Answer : Rod Serling

Rod Serling wrote a large share of the episodes of this fantasy anthology and acted as its on-screen narrator, appearing to set the scene for each story.

Which creator is behind the series The West Wing?

Answer : Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin wrote most of the early seasons of this political drama, which aired on NBC from 1999 to 2006, and made it a model of fast-paced dialogue.

Which actor plays the oil tycoon J. R. Ewing in the series Dallas?

Answer : Larry Hagman

J. R. Ewing, a scheming Texas businessman, became one of television's best-known villains; the question of who shot J. R. gripped the public in 1980.

Which French channel launched the crime series Engrenages (Spiral) in 2005?

Answer : Canal+

Engrenages follows police officers, judges and lawyers in Paris. Produced for Canal+, it was sold to many countries under the title Spiral.

Which actor plays the lead in The Prisoner (1967) and is one of its creators?

Answer : Patrick McGoohan

Patrick McGoohan plays Number Six, a former agent held in a mysterious village. This British series of seventeen episodes remains a cult favourite for its allegorical dimension.

Who composed the music for the series Lost?

Answer : Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino won an Emmy in 2005 for the music of Lost, before going on to score several Pixar animated films, including Up.

Which showrunners adapted George R. R. Martin's novels for HBO?

Answer : David Benioff and D. B. Weiss

David Benioff and D. B. Weiss pitched the project to HBO before its 2011 launch and then ran the series until its conclusion in 2019.

Who provides the original voice of Homer Simpson?

Answer : Dan Castellaneta

Dan Castellaneta has voiced Homer since the 1987 shorts and also lends his voice to Krusty the Clown and Grampa Simpson.

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