THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The way to being the top interviewer and Queen of the TV Heap. Those who went before her have moved on to other ventures or retirement leaving what looks like a clear path for Megyn to the top.

Barbara Walters is retired, Oprah Winfrey is running a network and Megyn Kelly sees an opening.

“It’s there for the taking right now,” she said in a recent interview.

And what is there for the taking? What those famous hosts had accomplished: conducting the sort of interviews that could transfix a nation.

“Those were the biggest spots to go for an interview if you had something you wanted to get off your chest, if you were in the middle of a scandal or a major news story and you wanted to do a long-form sit-down to get past it or to go on the record,” she said.

She quickly added: “And I’m here!”

Making the Oprah or Barbara Walters leap is a remarkably tricky business. Many have tried before, with daytime shows or prime-time specials, only to run into a wall and return to a more comfortable corner of television. And the interview special is a relic from a time on television when what was broadcast on the Big Four networks was what mattered most.

But on Tuesday, Ms. Kelly, the Fox News anchor and host of “The Kelly File,” will take her first crack at a prime-time special on Fox — the broadcast network, not the cable news station — with “Megyn Kelly Presents.”

There is certainly one big hook to draw viewers: She will confront the likely Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, a man who over the last nine months has kept Ms. Kelly in the middle of a running news story by relentlessly attacking her.

And though Mr. Trump represents the so-called get, she will also interview two actors (Michael Douglas and Laverne Cox) and a lawyer (Robert Shapiro) who is back in the news after the successful O. J. Simpson anthology “American Crime Story” on FX.

It remains to be seen if she can overcome the drag of coming from Fux Nooz, Murdoch's comedy channel.