Looking At Jeopardy Halfway Through Season 39

 

 

We are now at the official halfway point of Season 39 of Jeopardy and unlike this time last year, it seems there will be a clear demarcation of that. According to the show’s website, Jennings’ last show for this season aired on Friday and Mayim Bialik officially takes over hosting duties today. This has already been a busy season for Jeopardy and its worth taking stock of what has happened this year.

A little less than a quarter of this season has been devoted to the 2022 Tournament of Champions, first with the shows first-ever Second Chance Tournament that filled out the final two slots in the tournament, followed by more than three weeks of play that eventually led to the triumph of forty-game winner Amy Schneider as the winner. The show also made a viral sensation of Professors Tournament winner Sam Buttrey and reminded previous viewers of the skill of Andrew He, the eventual second place finisher in the tournament. How much of what led to this tournaments great moments will end up being present in the next one (Jennings has hinted that it will air some time in Season 40) but it was an example of superb play on all sides.

Interestingly enough, though last season was not nearly as interrupted as much as this season was by other factors, at this point in Season 39 as many people have qualified for the next tournament of Champions as had during play of last season. Admittedly, much of that was due to the domination of Schneider and Matt Amodio, who ended up winning nearly half of the games in Season 38 by this point, but the fact remains so far six players have qualified for the next tournaments of champions, including two players who have met the definition of super champion.

Cris Panullo managed to win 21 games and just under three quarters of a million dollars, dominating and winning at such a pace that Jennings’ himself referred to his streak as nearly that of James Holzhauer. 2022 officially ended with a player not quite as good but very nearly as successful, Ray LaLonde, who finished having won thirteen games and just under $400,000. He also earned a reputation as one of the most charming and nicest competitors to ever play the game, gracious even in victory.

To date four more players have also qualified: Luigi De Guzman, who managed five wins and $140,700, Troy Meyer, mocked by social media for being two nice but who managed six wins and $214, 802 and Matthew Marcus, recently defeated after four wins but still winning $114,200 before being defeated. Also likely to come back is David Sibley, an Episcopal priest who managed to win just over $78,000 before being thrashed by Cris Panullo. Could there be a set up for a rematch in the next Tournament of Champions? We shall see.

And the family of Jeopardy continues to expand. Sean McShane, who won three games before being defeated by Ray LaLonde, was the cousin of Dan McShane, four time champion and semi-finalist in the 2013 Tournament of Champions. (The McShane family reunion will be…interesting this year.) Martha Bath, who appeared early this season, had in fact appeared on the Art Fleming version of the show nearly fifty years earlier. She did better than her previous win of $40, taking home over $30,000 in her one win. And the play continues to be exceptional: last month, a game took place where all sixty-one clues were answered correctly.

Even the Celebrity Tournament, notorious for being lampooned on SNL for showcasing notoriously bad players, featured some superb moments, particularly from the three finalists Wil Wheaton, Ike Barnholtz and Patton Oswalt.  Other players such as Michael Cera and Ted Lasso’s Brendan Hunt distinguished themselves throughout the series, and while some of the clues were easier than they usually are, you got the sense the writers were having a certain amount of fun along the way. (My personal favorite category JOHNNY GILBERT IS THE TV CHARACTER where we got to hear the dulcet tones of Johnny Gilbert utter dialogue from some of the most memorable characters in Peak TV including Walter White, Dexter Morgan and Don Draper. Personal favorite: his quoting of Omar Little’s iconic line: “You come at the king, you best not miss.”) And I also respected that, after years of having celebrities making appearances reading Jeopardy clues, in the celebrity Tournament, Jeopardy super-champions were giving clues to celebrities. Amy Schneider talked about her beloved Golden State Warriors, Austin Rogers talked about bartending, and James Holzhauer gave advice about gambling. I suppose the biggest money winner of all time Brad Rutter could have talked about being in show-business, but I think that would have been a little too on the nose. Still, it showed more promise and excitement than it has in the past and if they end up bringing it back, I might watch it live this time.

Of course, there has been some controversy already: three day winner Yogesh Raut spent much of his time making viral posts on Facebook, torching the show, its record towards minority contestants and making other racist and sexist tweets. Some have wondered about certain aspects of the details of Final Jeopardy’s throughout the season with a theological argument being started about the correct answer in the Tournament of Champions finals and another argument about the wording of a recent Final Jeopardy clue. And of course the usual trolls who just don’t seem to watch Jeopardy just to rag on the contestant. But overall, the show seems to have hit its groove in the post Alex Trebek era with the balance that it needs to have to thrive. Which it appears to be doing quite well given the boost in ratings it has gotten over the past two years, averaging between 8 and 9 million viewers an episode.

And it looks like the show is willing to expand further. This week marks the High School Reunion Tournament, effectively a Teen Tournament reunion bringing 27 players from several recent seasons now attending or graduating college. The grand prize is $100,000 and a spot in the Tournament of Champions, effectively being the first time any player from a Teen Tournament will make an appearance in a Tournament of Champions in more than twenty years. Given the success of the Professors Tournament in the winter of 2021 and the Prime Time College Championship last year, we shall likely see both again, though it remains to be seen as to when. Perhaps the Teen Tournament itself, last played in 2019, shall also make a reappearance and the winner of that will be allowed to rejoin the Tournament of Champions.

Also on the docket is the first ever Prime-Time Masters Tournament, which has only disappointed fans by the fact that we have just seen five of the six invited champions in the most recent Tournament of Champions. (That said, if you didn’t bring Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach back for a tournament called ‘Masters’, you might be accused of false advertising.)

There is also talk of tinkering with the schedule, moving all of these special tournaments to the start of the season and having uninterrupted play going forward. In all honesty, that’s far from the worst idea given how these interruptions have played havoc on champions whose run was interrupted by such tournaments. Of course, many fans of the shows might be impatient having to wait a period of months for regular play to begin. We shall see what comes of this idea.

Last summer, I authored an article for a prospective 40^th Anniversary Tournament for the show, which is now almost an inevitability.  At this point, the only question remaining is how many other great Jeopardy champions will come to fill the ranks in the months to come? Peak Jeopardy is here, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon.