69 Fun Facts About 2023 TV

Which character ends up as CEO of Waystar RoyCo when Succession's series finale airs in May 2023?

Tom Wambsgans becomes CEO after Shiv votes against her brother Kendall in the final board vote, handing the job to her estranged husband. Matthew Macfadyen won Emmys for the role.

In which season 4 episode of Succession does Logan Roy die?

Logan dies off-screen aboard his jet in "Connor's Wedding" (season 4, episode 3), while his children are on a boat for Connor's wedding. All four options are real season 4 titles.

Which mutated fungus turns people into infected in HBO's The Last of Us, which premiered in January 2023?

Cordyceps is the mutated fungus. The real fungus infects ants and hijacks their behaviour, which the show's 1968 talk-show cold open uses to make the outbreak feel plausible.

Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett play survivalists Bill and Frank in which episode of The Last of Us?

"Long, Long Time" (season 1, episode 3) is a near-standalone love story spanning 20 years, and Nick Offerman won a Primetime Emmy for it. All four options are real season 1 titles.

Who plays Joel and Ellie in HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us?

Both actors had appeared in Game of Thrones, Pascal as Oberyn Martell and Ramsey as Lyanna Mormont, though they never shared a scene there.

Which comedy stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmy Berzatto and won Outstanding Comedy Series at the 75th Emmys?

The Bear took ten Emmys across the main and Creative Arts ceremonies for its first season, and its second season had already arrived on FX on Hulu in June 2023.

Steven Yeun and Ali Wong feud after a road-rage incident in which 2023 Netflix series?

Beef premiered on Netflix in April 2023. Both leads won Emmys and the show swept its three Golden Globe categories; creator Lee Sung Jin based it on a real road-rage encounter of his own.

Ronald Gladden sat through a fake trial in which everyone but him was an actor, in which 2023 Amazon Freevee series?

Jury Duty, released on Amazon Freevee in April 2023, surrounded Gladden with actors including James Marsden playing an entitled version of himself; it was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys.

Jason Sudeikis first played Ted Lasso in 2013 promos for which US network's Premier League coverage?

NBC Sports ran the Ted Lasso promos in 2013 and 2014 to launch its Premier League coverage, before the character was expanded into the Apple TV+ series that debuted in 2020.

Which musician completed an EGOT at the 75th Emmys with a farewell concert special from Dodger Stadium?

Elton John's Disney+ special of his November 2022 Dodger Stadium show won the Emmy that completed his EGOT; he already had two Oscars, Grammys and a Tony for Aida.

Because of the Hollywood strikes, the 75th Emmys were pushed from September to which month?

Anthony Anderson hosted the delayed ceremony on Fox on 15 January, a week after the Golden Globes and only two months before the Oscars.

Lars Mikkelsen played which villain in live action for the first time in Ahsoka (2023)?

Mikkelsen had voiced Grand Admiral Thrawn in the animated Star Wars Rebels, making him one of the few actors to carry a Star Wars role from animation into live action.

Ahsoka's first episode was dedicated to which actor, who played Baylan Skoll and died in May 2023?

Ray Stevenson, known for Rome and the Thor films, died on 21 May 2023. Rory McCann, Game of Thrones' Hound, was later cast to take over Baylan Skoll for season two.

Netflix's live-action One Piece, released in August 2023, was filmed mainly in which city?

Shooting took place at Cape Town Film Studios in South Africa, where a full-size replica of the Going Merry was built; the show topped Netflix's viewing report for the second half of 2023.

How much was the single cash prize in Netflix's 2023 reality show Squid Game: The Challenge?

The $4.56 million prize echoes the 456 players who entered, and Netflix billed it as the largest single cash prize in reality TV history. Player 287, Mai Whelan, won it.

How old was Gerry Turner when ABC announced him as the first lead of The Golden Bachelor in 2023?

ABC introduced the 72-year-old Indiana widower in July 2023. He proposed to Theresa Nist in the finale and married her in a live TV wedding in January 2024; they filed for divorce three months later.

Kelsey Grammer's 2023 Frasier revival moved the character to which city?

Frasier returns to Boston, becoming a lecturer at Harvard, back in the city where Cheers introduced him. David Hyde Pierce declined to return as Niles.

Which Oscar winner joined Loki's second season in 2023 as Ouroboros, the TVA repairs technician O.B.?

Ke Huy Quan arrived fresh from his Everything Everywhere All at Once Oscar win to play O.B. The season ended with Loki holding the timelines together himself.

In which Rian Johnson series does Natasha Lyonne play Charlie Cale, who can tell when anyone is lying?

Poker Face premiered on Peacock in January 2023. Johnson built it as a Columbo-style howcatchem, and Charlie drives a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda from case to case.

Which veteran film star plays therapist Paul Rhoades in Apple TV+'s Shrinking?

Harrison Ford's Dr. Paul Rhoades is a senior therapist at the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center; the show was co-created by Ted Lasso's Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein with Jason Segel.

In which 2023 Apple TV+ drama, based on Hugh Howey's Wool, does Rebecca Ferguson play an engineer in a 144-level bunker?

Silo premiered in May 2023. Ten thousand people live inside without knowing why, and the outside is shown to them only on a single screen. Howey originally self-published Wool as a short story.

In Netflix's The Diplomat, Keri Russell's Kate Wyler is the new US ambassador to which country?

Kate is posted to the United Kingdom, arriving in London in the first episode. Rufus Sewell plays her husband Hal, himself a former ambassador, and creator Debora Cahn wrote for The West Wing and Homeland.

Gabriel Basso mans an emergency phone in the White House basement in which 2023 Netflix thriller?

The Night Agent, released in March 2023 and based on a Matthew Quirk novel, racked up 812.1 million hours watched by June, more than any other Netflix original in that span.

What is the title of the fictional band's album in Daisy Jones & the Six?

The album is Aurora, which Atlantic Records actually released on the show's March 2023 premiere day. Riley Keough and Sam Claflin sang the vocals themselves.

Which 2023 Prime Video spin-off of The Boys is set at Godolkin University?

Gen V premiered in September 2023 with Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau, whose power is manipulating her own blood. After Chance Perdomo died in 2024 his role was written out rather than recast.

In Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher, Carla Gugino's Verna has a name that is an anagram of what?

Verna rearranges to Raven, Poe's most famous poem. The Ushers' company is Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, another Poe nod, and Mark Hamill plays their fixer, nicknamed The Pym Reaper.

Who plays corrupt North Dakota sheriff Roy Tillman in Fargo's fifth season?

Jon Hamm plays Tillman, a constitutionalist sheriff hunting Juno Temple's Dot. Sam Spruell's hired killer Ole Munch is revealed to be a 500-year-old Welsh sin-eater, one of the season's stranger swings.

Lance Reddick played which Greek god in Disney+'s Percy Jackson and the Olympians?

Reddick played Zeus; he died in March 2023, before the series premiered that December. Courtney B. Vance took over the part for the second season.

Which HBO series, starring Bill Hader as a hitman who wanders into an acting class, ended its four-season run in May 2023?

Barry's final season jumped eight years forward, and it shared its finale night with another HBO drama's series ender about a media dynasty.

The Crown's sixth and final season, released in two parts in late 2023, ends with which royal wedding?

The finale closes on Charles and Camilla's April 2005 wedding, the season having opened in 1997 ahead of Diana's death. Imelda Staunton was the third actress to play the Queen, after Claire Foy and Olivia Colman.

Which series was 2023's most-streamed show on Nielsen's chart, with 57.7 billion minutes?

Suits, which ended in 2019, topped Nielsen's weekly streaming chart for 12 straight weeks after arriving on Netflix and Peacock, helped by curiosity about Meghan Markle's Rachel Zane.

After Pat Sajak announced in June 2023 that he would retire from Wheel of Fortune, who was named his successor as host?

Ryan Seacrest took over after Sajak's final episode aired in June 2024; Sajak had hosted since 1981 and holds the Guinness record for the longest game-show hosting career on one show.

What was the title of Matthew Perry's bestselling 2022 memoir?

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing was published in November 2022 and was frank about the addiction he battled throughout Friends. Perry died in October 2023, aged 54.

How old was All in the Family creator Norman Lear when he died in December 2023?

Lear was 101; born in July 1922, he died on 5 December 2023. He was still developing shows in his late nineties, and in 2017, at 95, he became the oldest Kennedy Center Honors recipient.

Bob Barker ended every episode of The Price Is Right from 1982 with a reminder to do what?

Barker's closing line was "Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered." Drew Carey kept it when he took over in 2007, and Barker funded a Sea Shepherd ship.

Andre Braugher, who died in December 2023, played deadpan precinct captain Raymond Holt on which Golden Globe-winning sitcom?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Holt came after Braugher's Detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street; he won two Emmys for dramatic roles.

How many days did the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike last?

The strike ran 148 days, from 2 May to 27 September 2023, the second-longest WGA strike ever, five days short of the 1988 record. Late-night hosts filled the gap with the podcast Strike Force Five.

SAG-AFTRA's July 2023 strike was the first time actors and writers had struck simultaneously since which year?

The 1960 double strike featured a Screen Actors Guild president named Ronald Reagan. The 2023 actors' strike ran 118 days, the longest against the studios in the union's history.

Quinta Brunson's mockumentary Abbott Elementary is set in a public school in which city?

Brunson grew up in Philadelphia and named the school after her own sixth-grade teacher there. At the delayed 75th Emmys she became the first Black woman to win lead actress in a comedy since 1981.

For how much did Fox News settle Dominion Voting Systems' defamation suit in April 2023?

Fox paid $787.5 million, the largest known media defamation settlement in US history at the time; Dominion had originally sued for $1.6 billion.

Which host's exit did Fox News announce on April 24, 2023, days after the Dominion settlement?

CNN parted with Don Lemon the same day. Carlson relaunched his show on X (formerly Twitter) six weeks later.

Who headlined the halftime show of Super Bowl LVII in February 2023?

Rihanna's set was her first live performance in more than five years, and she used it to reveal her second pregnancy. Fox's telecast averaged 115.1m viewers as the Chiefs beat the Eagles 38-35.

The high-school soccer team whose 1996 plane crash over Canada drives Yellowjackets hails from fictional Wiskayok in which US state?

New Jersey's Wiskayok team was flying to a national tournament in Seattle when the plane went down; Elijah Wood joined the present-day cast as citizen detective Walter.

Reservation Dogs, which ended in September 2023, follows four Indigenous teenagers in which state?

It is set in rural Oklahoma, where co-creator Sterlin Harjo grew up. Co-created with Taika Waititi, it was the first American series with all-Native American writers and directors.

Which That '70s Show couple are the parents of Leia, the lead of That '90s Show?

Eric and Donna are her parents; Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp returned as Red and Kitty in Point Place, Wisconsin.

Who plays Bo-Katan Kryze, the Mandalorian leader central to season 3 of The Mandalorian in spring 2023?

Katee Sackhoff had voiced Bo-Katan in The Clone Wars and Rebels from 2012 before playing her in the flesh from season 2. Season 3 centres on retaking the Mandalorians' home planet.

In Lessons in Chemistry, what is the TV cooking show Elizabeth Zott ends up hosting called?

Zott hosts Supper at Six, teaching chemistry through cooking. Her dog, named Six-Thirty, narrates parts of the story, as he does in Bonnie Garmus's bestselling novel.

Which rock star co-wrote and sings the theme for Gary Oldman's spy series Slow Horses?

Mick Jagger wrote the theme, Strange Game, with composer Daniel Pemberton and sings it. Oldman plays Jackson Lamb, the flatulent boss of MI5's rejects at Slough House.

In which era of Japanese history is Netflix's 2023 animated series Blue Eye Samurai set?

It is set in the Edo period, when Japan's closed borders make Mizu's mixed parentage a mark of shame. Maya Erskine voices Mizu and Kenneth Branagh voices the villain Abijah Fowler.

In Star Trek: Picard's 2023 final season, Jack is revealed as Picard's son with which character?

Jack Crusher is Picard's son with Beverly Crusher, who raised him without telling Picard. Amanda Plummer played the villain Vadic in the ten-episode season, which ran on Paramount+ from February to April 2023.

Who won the first Jeopardy! Masters tournament, which aired on ABC in May 2023 with Ken Jennings hosting?

He took home $500,000 and the Trebek Trophy from a six-player field that also included Andrew He and Sam Buttrey.

Which two film stars joined season three of Only Murders in the Building in 2023, credited with the main cast?

Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep: Rudd's Ben Glenroy drops dead on opening night of Oliver's play Death Rattle, and Streep's Loretta Durkin becomes Oliver's love interest.

In which state do Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder film their HGTV-style show in The Curse?

The town is Española, New Mexico, where the couple shoot their eco-home show Fliplanthropy. The finale sends Fielder's Asher floating up into the sky after gravity reverses for him alone.

In the first episode of Netflix's 2023 series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, what happens to Scott that upends the familiar story?

He disappears, and the story then follows Ramona investigating his vanishing; the 2010 film's cast, including Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, returned as the voices.

Marvel's Secret Invasion (2023) drew backlash over its opening titles because they were made using what?

The timing stung because AI protections were a central issue in the writers' strike then under way. Method Studios said its artists had not been replaced.

In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, what is the name of Midge's manager, played by Alex Borstein?

Borstein won two Emmys for the role. The final season used flash-forwards to show Midge and Susie decades later.

Dominique Fishback plays Dre, murderously obsessed with pop star Ni'Jah, in which 2023 series?

Swarm arrived on Prime Video in March 2023. Donald Glover and Janine Nabers created it, and Billie Eilish made her acting debut as a cult leader named Eva.

Which cartoon overtook Cocomelon in 2023 as the most-streamed children's show in the US?

Bluey, made by Ludo Studio in Queensland, was second only to Suits on Nielsen's 2023 streaming rankings. The Blue Heeler puppy's dad Bandit is an archaeologist and mum Chilli works in airport security.

Melissa Rauch leads the 2023 revival of which 1984-92 sitcom?

Night Court returned on NBC in January 2023 with Rauch as Abby Stone, daughter of Harry Anderson's Judge Harry Stone. John Larroquette came back as Dan Fielding, now a public defender rather than a prosecutor.

Who hosted the 80th Golden Globes in January 2023, the ceremony's return to TV after a year off air?

Jerrod Carmichael hosted on NBC, a year after the 2022 ceremony went untelevised. Abbott Elementary tied for the most awards of the night with three, and House of the Dragon took Best Drama Series.

Idris Elba plays a negotiator aboard a seized Dubai-London flight in which 2023 Apple TV+ thriller?

Hijack follows Kingdom Airlines 29 in near real time, each of its seven episodes covering roughly an hour of the flight, with Elba as business negotiator Sam Nelson.

Which two actors star as memory-wiped spies Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh in Prime Video's Citadel?

Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas lead it. With a reported $300 million budget for six episodes, the first season is one of the most expensive TV series ever made.

In Prime Video's 2023 Dead Ringers, Rachel Weisz plays twin doctors of what speciality?

The Mantle twins are gynecologists, gender-flipped versions of the characters Jeremy Irons played in David Cronenberg's 1988 film, running a Manhattan birthing practice.

FUBAR (2023) gave which film star his first leading role in a scripted live-action TV series?

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Luke Brunner, a CIA operative who discovers his daughter Emma is also secretly a CIA agent; Netflix released the series in May 2023.

In Black Mirror's 'Joan Is Awful', which actress plays Joan in the TV show made of Joan's life?

Salma Hayek plays herself playing Joan, while Annie Murphy is the real Joan. The episode's fictional streamer, Streamberry, parodies Netflix, which Charlie Brooker said had no objection to the portrayal.

Love & Death, starring Elizabeth Olsen as Candy Montgomery, is set in which Texas town?

Montgomery lived in Wylie, north-east of Dallas, where she killed Betty Gore with an axe in 1980 and was acquitted. Max released the seven-episode series in April 2023.

Betty Gilpin plays a nun pitting her faith against an artificial intelligence in which 2023 Peacock series, co-created by Lost's Damon Lindelof?

Mrs. Davis premiered at SXSW before its Peacock debut in April 2023, with Jake McDorman, Margo Martindale and David Arquette in support.

Who plays Purdue Pharma's Richard Sackler in Netflix's 2023 opioid drama Painkiller?

Matthew Broderick plays Richard Sackler. Uzo Aduba leads as investigator Edie Flowers, and Peter Berg directed all six episodes of the miniseries.

Which Alicia Keys song, reworked for Queen Charlotte, earned an MTV VMA nomination?

Keys re-recorded If I Ain't Got You with Queen Charlotte's Global Orchestra for the series. Kris Bowers's score reinterprets pop songs in a classical style, and the series hit number one in 91 countries.