TV in the Teens Trivia Quiz

Answer: Game of Thrones

Based on George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire", HBO's "Game of Thrones" took the world by storm with a strange combination of political intrigue, medieval fashion choices of questionable practicality, zombies, epic battle scenes, and eventually enough dragons to keep the special effects department busy. The series follows noble houses who are all very enthusiastic about one strangely uncomfortable-looking metal chair.

Whether you loved it or rage-quit, "Game of Thrones" definitely set new standards for television storytelling. It led to endless discussions, speculation, and at least one very unhappy teenager storming out of my living room after watching the Red Wedding episode.

Answer: Breaking Bad

"Breaking Bad" follows Walter White, a mild-mannered high-school chemistry teacher and everyman, who responds to a cancer diagnosis in exactly the same way that most people absolutely do not: by cooking methamphetamine in the desert with a former student.

It begins as an attempt to secure his family's financial future for after his death and somehow spirals into a study in questionable decision-making, moral collapse, and the many creative uses of hydrofluoric acid. With tremendous performances from Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, "Breaking Bad" became one of AMC's most celebrated series.

Answer: Mr. Robot

"Mr. Robot" follows one Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity expert by day and vigilante hacker with social anxiety by night. He's brilliant, introverted, mentally ill, and about one wrong word from completely unraveling. When he's recruited by an underground group of hacktivists, things move quickly from "mildly concerning" to "global economic chaos," all narrated in Elliot's unreliable voice. Rami Malek's performance earned widespread acclaim, especially for portraying Elliot's fractured mental state without reducing it to a cheap gimmick. Throw in Christian Slater as the mysterious Mr. Robot, and you've got a show that became one of the biggest critical successes ever to air on the USA Network.

Answer: The Walking Dead

"The Walking Dead" shuffled menacingly onto AMC in 2010 and quickly became the decade's unofficial guide to surviving the apocalypse, as long as you have unlimited ammo, a knack for dramatic timing, and absolutely no attachment to anyone around you. The series follows Rick Grimes and a rotating cast of survivors who discover that zombies (or "walkers") are really just the warm-up act for the true nightmare: other people. (I feel the same way.) Compared to the walkers, the people have fewer boundaries and far worse negotiation skills.

It's a mix of horror, survival drama, moral dilemmas, and enough shocking character departures to keep fans in regular therapy. The group moves from abandoned cities to makeshift communities to outright dystopian societies where staying human in an inhuman world becomes harder and harder.

Answer: Modern Family

"Modern Family" is a comedy series that ran on ABC for 11 seasons, from 2009 to 2020. It's all about the everyday chaos of three connected families, led by Jay Pritchett. The cast includes Ed O'Neill, Sofía Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Eric Stonestreet, among others.

The show uses a mockumentary style with the characters talking straight to the camera and sharing their thoughts, which only adds to its quirky charm. It became a fan favorite right away. Critics were especially into the early seasons, and viewers couldn't get enough of the characters.

The series picked up numerous awards over the years, including 22 Emmys and a Golden Globe.

Answer: Veep

"Veep" stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, the Vice President of the United States, who dreams of greatness but spends most of her time putting out fires, most of which her own staff started. The show is a satire of politics in Washington, D.C., where every press event becomes a disaster, every policy push collapses under ego and plain incompetence, and every aide is teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

During its run, the series racked up numerous awards as critics swooned over Louis-Dreyfus's performance as a politician who wants to make history... but will settle for making headlines. It became one of HBO's most celebrated comedies.

Answer: Stranger Things

Welcome to the Upside-Down, which could describe the 1980s, when "Stranger Things" takes place. If the decade is known for anything, it's definitely big hair, big glasses, and a world of secret government labs that absolutely should not have been doing whatever it was that they were doing.

The series begins with young Will Byers vanishing, which sends his friends on a mission armed with bikes and walkie-talkies. Along the way, they meet Eleven, a girl with a shaved head, telekinetic powers, and a strange obsession with frozen Eggo waffles. Surprisingly, the brand did not originally sponsor the "Stranger Things"... although less surprisingly they later embraced the connection with the hit show.

Answer: The Leftovers

"The Leftovers" begins with a catastrophe no one can explain: two percent of the world's population disappears instantly. That's it. There's no warning, no pattern, no answers... just a lot of confused people and a worldwide existential crisis. Instead of focusing on the sudden departure itself, the show looks into what happens after the unlikely event, following families and communities struggling to deal with grief, guilt, and the uncomfortable possibility that life might never make sense again if it ever did.

The characters spend the show wrestling with the same impossible question: how do you move forward when the world refuses to give the answers you need?

Answer: Westworld

"Westworld" drops us into a massive Wild West theme park where wealthy guests can live out their gun-slinging fantasies with android "hosts" who are programmed to obey, forget, and repeat. Things get messy once those hosts start remembering, especially the violent or humiliating things visitors thought would stay safely off the record. Turns out giving self-aware machines access to firearms and trauma is not the best long-term business strategy.

As the series unfolds, the show takes a look at consciousness, free will, corporate ambition, and the eternally popular sci-fi question: "Are we sure building incredibly realistic robots is a good idea?" There's plenty of action, mystery, and more plot twists than you can shake a cowboy hat at.

Answer: The Big Bang Theory

"The Big Bang Theory" is the sitcom that turned jokes about particle physics into prime-time fodder. Created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, it follows a group of Caltech scientists (Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj) and their neighbor-turned-friend Penny as they struggle through research deadlines, romantic disasters, and the sort of nerdy obsessions (comic books, video games, action figures) that make the rest of us politely look away.

The show ran for twelve seasons on CBS from 2007 to 2019 and made Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons) a cultural phenomenon... part genius, part walking encyclopedia, and part social software in need of an update. Jim Parsons won multiple Emmys for his performance, and the ensemble cast launched a million memes and a successful spinoff in "Young Sheldon".