Quiz: Can You Match the Actors to the 2000s TV Show They Starred In?

The 2000s were a memorable time for television. This decade saw the premiere of a whole host of memorable TV shows, from teen dramas like The O.C. and Friday Night Lights to gems like Arrested Development. TV viewers of this era also got to watch the rise of prestige dramas thanks to The Sopranos, as well as a whole bunch of other major hits that have cemented the 2000s’ association with the dawn of “peak TV.” But how well do you really know your 2000s TV show casts? Test your knowledge with the quiz below.

TV in the 2000s

The first decade of the 2000s saw the launch of a lot of shows that continue to impact television and culture today. The Sopranos premiered in 1999 and aired throughout the 2000s, and laid the blueprint for many significant HBO dramas to come.

The show followed Tony Soprano as he attempted to balance his family with life in the Mafia, and its deep dive into Soprano’s psychology popularized the archetype of the modern, morally gray TV antihero.

Lost was another major 2000s player. The show aired from 2004 to 2010, and followed a group of people who crash on a remote island and experience increasingly supernatural events. The show also had a strong influence on TV storytelling. At a time when most TV shows were primarily episodic, Lost worked all of its episodes into a much greater narrative, and helped introduce the idea of limited multi-season arcs to TV executives. 

Other dramas of this time like Six Feet Under, Deadwood, and Breaking Bad all had audiences clinging to their seats, and resulted in TV’s ascendance to greater and greater heights of storytelling and character development. 

Meanwhile, teen-focused shows like The O.C., Friday Night Lights, and One Tree Hill defined countless people’s teenage years and kept the drama flowing. Friends reigned in the realm of sitcoms until it concluded in 2004, but comedy stayed alive and well with The Office, which premiered in the United States in 2005. Its hilarious, now-iconic cast is still widely associated with their roles in the show, and its satirical take on office culture and social norms made it an enduring cultural staple.

Series like Avatar: The Last Airbender, meanwhile, proved that kids’ shows could be filled with social commentary. And competitions like American Idol and Survivor burst onto the scene to become some of the biggest names in reality TV and entertainment on the whole. 

There was no shortage of great entertainment in the 2000s. We may not have TikTok, but we did have some of the most acclaimed TV ever made. Fortunately, all of the aforementioned shows are definitely available to stream on one platform or another—and there’s never really a wrong time for an Office rewatch, now, is there?

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