Dynasty
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50 free Dynasty trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dynasty turned a feuding family of American billionaires into the most-watched programme on television. For nine seasons in the 1980s, Blake, Krystle and Alexis schemed, married, divorced and brawled their way through a world of mansions, boardrooms and cliffhangers that left viewers guessing all summer. This quiz covers the whole saga: the characters and their tangled marriages, the actors who played them, the storylines fans still talk about, and the people behind the camera. There is a run of questions on the wardrobe too, because the look of the series, all glamour and excess, shaped what people wore for a decade. A handful of questions cover the spin-off and the 2017 reboot. The questions run from easy openers for anyone who remembers the theme tune to deep cuts for viewers who never missed an episode. Play it alone, or use it as a 1980s television round at your next quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which American city do the wealthy Carringtons of the 1980s soap Dynasty live in a 48-room mansion?
Denver
Denver is the family's home on screen, but the mansion in the opening credits is really an estate in Woodside, California.
Q 02Which hit CBS series was ABC trying to rival when it commissioned Dynasty, first broadcast in January 1981?
Dallas
Dallas was the target, and catching it took four years: Dynasty finally became America's most-watched show in the 1984–85 season.
Q 03Which exaggerated 1980s fashion feature is the Dynasty wardrobe widely credited with turning into a mainstream trend?
Shoulder pads
Shoulder pads had been pushed by designers since 1978, and the show's glamorous women helped make the public want to wear them.
Q 04The best-remembered Dynasty catfight between Krystle and Alexis has the two rivals brawling in which water feature?
A lily pond
A lily pond at a Pasadena villa hosted the fight, a rematch after the pair's first brawl in Alexis's studio.
Q 05Which Hollywood leading man made his final screen appearances as Daniel Reece, an admirer of Krystle on Dynasty?
Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson's kissing scenes with Krystle, shown before his AIDS diagnosis became public, led the actors' union to require advance notice of open-mouth kisses.
Q 06Which Republican statesman played himself in a 1983 episode of Dynasty that also featured Henry Kissinger?
Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford appeared with his wife Betty, a sign of the show's pull: it was then the third most-watched programme in America.
Q 07Which future Disney chief executive cancelled Dynasty in 1989, soon after becoming ABC's entertainment president?
Bob Iger
Bob Iger pulled the plug when the show had sunk to 69th in the ratings, so its last episode ended on a cliffhanger never meant to be final.
Q 08Which Best Actor Oscar winner played tycoon Jason Colby in The Colbys, the Dynasty spin-off launched in 1985?
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was reportedly paid $85,000 an episode, yet the spin-off drew poor ratings and lasted only two seasons.
Q 09What happens to a stranded Fallon in the desert in the 1987 finale of the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys?
A UFO abduction
A UFO abduction closed the series: Fallon boards the craft and it takes off, and back on Dynasty her husband refuses to believe her story.
Q 10Which British actress joined Dynasty in its second season as Blake Carrington's scheming former wife Alexis?
Joan Collins
Joan Collins took a part the creators had planned to give Sophia Loren for only four to six episodes.
Q 11Which actor, already the unseen voice of Charlie in Charlie's Angels, played patriarch Blake Carrington on Dynasty?
John Forsythe
John Forsythe was the only cast member to appear in all 220 episodes, despite joining as a last-minute replacement for the first choice.
Q 12Which actress, once Audra Barkley in the Western series The Big Valley, played Blake's wife Krystle on Dynasty?
Linda Evans
Linda Evans also played Rita, a lookalike who replaces the kidnapped Krystle in a 1985–86 storyline, so she ended up fighting herself on screen.
Q 13Which actress played Krystle's gold-digging niece on Dynasty while co-starring with William Shatner in a police drama?
Heather Locklear
Q 21Which Hollywood designer created about 3,000 outfits for Dynasty and vowed never to dress its stars the same way twice?
Nolan Miller
Nolan Miller had $35,000 a week to spend on the wardrobe, and his designs proved so popular that they were sold as a clothing line.
Q 22Which composer, famous for the Rocky film scores, also wrote the theme music for Dynasty and its spin-off The Colbys?
Bill Conti
Bill Conti was on a hot streak: he scored a James Bond film the year the soap began and won an Oscar for The Right Stuff soon after.
Q 23What kind of licensed Dynasty product was sold to the show's fans under the name Forever Krystle?
A perfume
Heather Locklear shuffled between the two shows until 1986, then stayed with the Carringtons full time until the 1989 finale.
Q 14Which singer and actress joined Dynasty in 1984 as jet-set diva Dominique Deveraux, Blake Carrington's half-sister?
Diahann Carroll
Diahann Carroll made Dominique the first prominently featured African-American character on a prime-time soap, a role she had sought out herself.
Q 15What one-word working title did Dynasty carry in development, a title kept for its three-hour opening episode?
Oil
Oil was the working title, but the oil plots soon faded: the creators found that audiences only wanted to be in the mansion, not out in the drilling fields.
Q 16What job had Krystle held under Blake Carrington before becoming his bride at the start of Dynasty?
His secretary
His secretary became the lady of the house, and both the household staff and her new stepdaughter Fallon made sure she felt unwelcome.
Q 17Which US network launched a Dynasty reboot in 2017, developed by the creators of its earlier hit Gossip Girl?
The CW
The CW kept the reboot going for five seasons, and every episode takes its title from a line of dialogue in the 1980s original.
Q 18How did Dynasty explain Steven Carrington's new face when a different actor took over the role in the third season?
Plastic surgery
Plastic surgery after an accident in Indonesia was the excuse: the family is first told Steven is dead, then he comes home with a new face.
Q 19Which prolific producer of The Love Boat and Fantasy Island brought Dynasty to the screen for ABC?
Aaron Spelling
Aaron Spelling later outdid the Carringtons' 48-room mansion in real life by building himself a 123-room home in Los Angeles.
Q 20Where does Alexis make her first Dynasty appearance, veiled and wearing sunglasses, in the first-season finale?
A courtroom
A courtroom was the stage, but the veiled witness at Blake's murder trial was played by an uncredited actress, Maggie Wickman, not the star who took over.
A perfume carried Krystle's name while men got a cologne called Carrington, part of a licensed range that stretched to sheets, towels and furs.
Q 24The 2017 reboot of Dynasty relocated the Carringtons and their fortune to which city in the American South?
Atlanta
Atlanta was chosen partly for its diversity, and the reboot's producers noted that the original setting had been picked arbitrarily.
Q 25Which English actress took over the role of Fallon on Dynasty in 1985 after Pamela Sue Martin left?
Emma Samms
Emma Samms came straight from the daytime soap General Hospital, and her Fallon first reappeared with amnesia to cover the change of face.
Q 26Which Carrington daughter was played by Catherine Oxenberg, whose own mother is Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia?
Amanda
Amanda marries a prince on screen, which suited an actress who twice played Diana, Princess of Wales, in television films.
Q 27Which 1970s British historical drama did co-creator Esther Shapiro name as an inspiration for the family in Dynasty?
I, Claudius
I, Claudius follows the scheming imperial family of ancient Rome, and Shapiro wanted an American fantasy with a clan that still loved one another.
Q 28Which award did Dynasty win as best drama series in 1984, having been nominated every year since 1981?
Golden Globe
Golden Globe voters honoured the leads too: the actors playing Blake, Krystle and Alexis each took an acting prize between 1982 and 1984.
Q 29Dynasty won only one Emmy from 24 nominations across its run; which area of the production earned it in 1984?
Costumes
Costumes won where the acting never did: both lead actresses lost their Emmy races to Tyne Daly of Cagney and Lacey.
Q 30Which former star of Nickelodeon's Victorious leads the 2017 Dynasty reboot as businesswoman Fallon Carrington?
Elizabeth Gillies
Elizabeth Gillies even doubled as Fallon's mother Alexis for part of the second season, filling in between two other actresses in the role.