This Is JEOPARDY! 2023

[Edgy MD]

Now I'm trying to imagine what Joe Dimaggio Surgery would entail.

[metirish]

I haven't watched in a bit, is it on re-runs or has the new season started, and is Ken back ?

[MFS62]

Were these recent shows taped before the writers went on strike?
The writing leaves a lot to be desired and is subject to interpretation.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

I haven't watched in a bit, is it on re-runs or has the new season started, and is Ken back ?

They're in the final week(s?) of new shows.
Ken is back because Mayim walked out when the writers went on strike so KJ came back to finish out the season.

New season won't start until at least mid-Sept and maybe later if the writers thing isn't settled.

[kcmets]

I think "Who was Manet?" was a perfectly fine and acceptable 'question.'

(not that I would have ever gotten it)

[metirish]

I haven't watched in a bit, is it on re-runs or has the new season started, and is Ken back ?

They're in the final week(s?) of new shows.
Ken is back because Mayim walked out when the writers went on strike so KJ came back to finish out the season.

New season won't start until at least mid-Sept and maybe later if the writers thing isn't settled.

Oh wow ,thanks

[Edgy MD]

I've come to realize I enjoy reading Jeopardy! scuttlebutt largely because the title of the show is always stylized with the exclamation point, and there's something enlivening about reading passages that frequently include tone-changing exclamations in the middle of a sentence.

Anyhow, here's a in-depth look at the inner workings and context that led to Mayim Bialik losing her sweet Jeopardy! gig.

Not mentioned once is that hosting game shows is traditionally a dude's game and that Ms. Bialik was always going to be fighting uphill.

[Frayed Knot]

I prefer him to her -- for someone who's been acting since her early teens she often seemed oddly ill at ease on camera.
That said I wasn't one of the 'Fire her NOW she's ruining the game!!!' crowd, but am OK with her not being back and don't
really care what the reasons are.


And while we're on the subject, I'm about done with this 'Second Chance' stuff.
Not that I even remember most of these folks from their first go-around. But it seems counter to the game's ethos to be
returning almost winners and even prior winners (aww poor baby, only won twice before running into a super-champ)
while who knows how many are in a lottery for the chance to even get picked once.

[MFS62]

And while we're on the subject, I'm about done with this 'Second Chance' stuff.

Agree totally.
Later

[metirish]

I'm so done with it , why are they still doing it ?

[metirish]

Good article, Mayim grew on me over time, but I always found it annoying as noted in the article when she paused after a contestant gave a response

[Frayed Knot]

I'm so done with it , why are they still doing it ?

Supposedly this is a holdover from the writer's strike, where they're using unused questions left over from prior to
the strike and figured they'd use those on an existing stable of (previous) contestants due to uncertainty about the
filming schedule and the time it would take to get back up to speed once the strike was settled.
I'm not sure that explanation ever really made sense to me and it's already gone on much longer than I thought.

Either that or they decided to copy the NBA by staging a series of Tournaments! rather than an actual season.

[MFS62]

I'm so done with it , why are they still doing it ?

Supposedly this is a holdover from the writer's strike, where they're using unused questions left over from prior to
the strike and figured they'd use those on an existing stable of (previous) contestants due to uncertainty about the
filming schedule and the time it would take to get back up to speed once the strike was settled.

Yes, nobody could predict how long the strikes would last, so they taped the tourney to fill the gap.
And when the strike(s) ended, they were already "in the can" and they felt some kind of obligation to the participants and viewers (tell us who won, dammit!) to show them.
Later

[Frayed Knot]

So they're finally into an actual Tournament of Champions phase, one that would have been handled earlier in the TV season had
it not been for the writer's strike etc. But it's also an expanded format -- I think Ken said 27 contestants rather than the usual 15
including all the 'second chance' survivors plus whatever else they've been doing for the last four or five months -- so this is going
to take multiple weeks to put to bed instead of the usual two. So the bottom line is that by the time they'll be done here it'll be on
the precipice of April meaning that they'll essentially go without any first time contestants for the majority of one entire season.

Not that I particularly care really. I just watch to see if I can question a decent chunk of the answers (and find that I'm basically
getting dumber by the day) so barely even notice the contestants most of the time and rarely root for or against anyone. It just
seems a bit ... I dunno, anti-democratic maybe to be reusing so many J! veterans at the expense of little or no new blood even
if it was never their plan to do so.

[metirish]

I actually thought the second chance tournament would never end, gotta be honest I'm not watching with the same verve as before , need new people

[Frayed Knot]

That may have been the single worst Final J! question ever!

[Edgy MD]

The "alliterative title" one? I was stumped.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, that one.

Your best hope was to combine 1959 in the clue with the fact that one of the names was Asian to direct you to Alaska and Hawaii (I didn't even get that far).
But even then, the team "alliterative title" was pretty cheesy because while 'Senior Senator' is actually a thing I sense that most people would tend to think
of it (to the extent they think about it at all) as closer to calling someone a 'veteran short-stop', more of a description really than an official title. 'Secretary
of State' is a title. 'Chief Justice' is a title. 'Senior Senator' ... eh, not so much.
If one were to address Chuckles Schumer as 'Senator' is he going to correct you with 'That's Senior Senator to you pal!'? I somehow doubt it.

So not a bad question/answer because it was hard, just a bad Q/A in general. And that three multiple time champions all whiffed on it kind of backs that up
even as two of them appeared to make the Alaska/Hawaii connection but guessed 'State Senator' instead.

[Frayed Knot]

So with the Tournament of Champions over JEOPARDY returns to ... another tournament featuring invited past players playing against each
other for the chance to move to another tournament with no explanation as to why they were chosen while others, probably many others,
were not. It now appears increasingly likely that J! games with new contestants won't make an appearance until next season.

[metirish]

Yeah, such a disappointment

[Frayed Knot]

Finally, the first JEOPARDY! game with new, rather than recycled, contestants in nine months (since July '23) aired tonight!
The three-time returning champ finally got a chance to defend his title ... he didn't.

[metirish]

Yesterday's Final Jeopardy was a tough one

Until Alabama became the 22nd state, this one was first alphabetically


I picked the same answer as all three contestants

[Benjamin Grimm]

Connecticut?

[metirish]

Yes , they all guessed Arkansas

[MFS62]

I got it right.
I figured Arkansas was too obvious and also might have entered the Union after Alabama.
So, next up (alphabetically) was Connecticut.

AND
They announced they're going to have another prime time champions tournament.

Spoiler if you taped it
I'm sad the blond woman lost. I wanted to see her go on a long run. I liked her personality.

Later