Final Assessment of Season 39 of Jeopardy

 

After the 200^th episode of Season 39 of Jeopardy I commented that Suresh Krishnan’s six game run as champion was the poorest of the years and that I truly hoped things would get better. Well that episode began the run of a new champions whose run was not only worse than Suresh’s but one of the worst of any five day champion in the post Trebek era.

That may not be fair to Ben Goldstein, but sadly its accurate. Sam had what charitably be considered one of the poorest track records of any five day champion in a very long time. He won $49,298 in five games in which he only got a single Final Jeopardy correct. The game that he played the best in was actually the game that he lost his title where again he got Final Jeopardy wrong.  I grant you the bar has been raised particularly high by so many Jeopardy champions over the past year but in five games Ben somehow managed to win less than Maureen O’Neill, who had the lowest total of any of the qualifiers for the Tournament of Champions, and she won $58,200 in four games. I’m not sure how far I want to go back in Jeopardy history, but its been a very long time – perhaps since before the dollar figures were doubled in 2001 – that I remember someone qualifying for the Tournament of Champions with this low a total in five games, hell, maybe even in three.

I say this because this was symptomatic of a truly wretched period of play since Ben Chan departed the show in May of 2023. The scores at the end of Double Jeopardy were collectively wretched, countless Final Jeopardys stumped all three contestants and many times we had finalists deep in the red. Things did improve slightly after Ben Goldstein’s departure, but there was very little consistency in the interim: for the last month of the season, no one was able to win more than two consecutive games.

It was not until the final week of the season that we finally had a champion who was able to get over the hump. During the last three days Lucas Partridge managed to win three consecutive games and $66,200. In the final day of the season, he managed a come from behind win in Final Jeopardy. Having spent much of the game trailing Sharon Bishop, it came down to Final Jeopardy.

The category was WORD ORIGINS: “Theories on the origin of this, a style of journalism, include Cajun slang for unhinged jazz and Boston slang for a person on a bender.” Ben was the only player who knew the correct response: “What is gonzo?” (The style popularized by Hunter Thompson.) He won $24,000 and managed to end Season 39 on a high note – something it will need given the problem it now faces.

The WGA strike and Actors strike have forced Jeopardy into an uncertain future. Mayim Bialik refused to cross the picket line, forcing Jennings to host the final month of the season. Jennings himself faced criticism for it, particularly from those such as Wil Wheaton. Season 40 is itself mired in controversy before it has even begun: as I wrote in an earlier article, many of the Tournament of Champions participants announced they would not cross the picket line for that Tournament causing it to be postponed. It remains uncertain when the new season will begin, and already there is controversy over the potential decision to use ‘recycled clues’ when the season starts. (I actually think that is particularly an overblown problem, but that’s a subject for a future article.)

The larger problem for the next Tournament of Champions is how it will proceed at all and what format it will take: where as last year, there was a surplus of participants for the tournament, which led to the format being changed, at this point there are only twelve players who have met the standard for qualifications. For the record, here they are:

Luigi De Guzman: 5 Wins, $140,700

David Sibley: 4 wins, $78,098

Cris Panullo: 21 Wins, $748,286

Ray LaLonde: 13 wins, $386,400

Troy Meyer: 6 wins, $214,802

Stephen Webb: 8 wins, $184,881

Matthew Marcus: 4 wins, $114,200

Justin Bolsen, High School Reunion Tournament Winner: $100,000

Hannah Wilson: 8 Wins, $229,801

Ben Chan: 9 wins, $252,600

Suresh Krishnan: 6 wins, $96,595

Ben Goldstein: 5 wins, $49,298

Admittedly this year Jeopardy held no other tournaments other than the high school reunion tournament. Neither the College Championship or Professors Tournament took place during Season 39, and there is no explanation as to why neither happened.  That said in order to fill out the brackets even partially, one would have to widen it to include three games winners, something that has not been necessarily for more than a decade.

Even then, there is not exactly an embarrassment of riches: a quick scan of the season on j-archive.com reveals five obvious candidates who have won three games: Sean McShane, who $80,401 just prior to Ray Lalonde’s streak, Emmett Stanton who won $72,600 after ending Luigi De Guzman’s run,  Melissa Klapper, who won $59,100, Brian Henegar who won $68,202 and the controversial Yogesh Raut who won $96,403. Admittedly, however, all of these players won more than Ben Goldstein did in five, so there is an argument for their inclusion.

I don’t know when Jeopardy's fortieth season will happen – it is listed to begin in six weeks same as regular but it remains an open question whether it will do so, given the mess that it is going on with the strikes in Hollywood. Considering the optics involved involving the Tournament and everything else, it might be in the show’s best interest to delay its premiere until the strikes is resolved.

On a personal note, I actually wouldn’t mind if that meant a reduced season. I have always felt that the 230 game schedule is far too demanding for even the casual fan and it would be worth cutting it by at least six weeks. Wheel of Fortune had done the same throughout its run and I don’t think there’s any calling for the show to keep running at such a demanding base. (I felt that near the end of Alex Trebek’s run it might have been better for both him and the show to have done so, at least out of respect for his health even before he was diagnosed.) Jeopardy has managed to survive a lot of obstacles the past three years; it does not need to give itself any more self-inflicted wounds. The show is running very well right now; the last thing it needs is to try and hurt its brand after its managed to recover from a scandal that should have crippled it two years ago.

In the next few days I will explain why the recycled clues that so many fans and champions are up in arms about are really much ado about nothing.