I was kind of
appalled, to say the least, when I ended up reading online why several so
called ‘fans’ of Jeopardy were upset at the lineup for the 2023 Tournament of
Champions. Not because they thought the contestants were unqualified; no, it
was because there was only one woman.
“How could the show have so few female competitors in the Tournament of
Champions?”
It is that
reaction that makes me certain these ‘fans’ of Jeopardy only started watching
within the last two years at most. Jeopardy has standards for
participation in its tournaments but affirmative action and gender equality
have never been something that get you in. You have to win a certain number of
games or a tournament to get in. I’m actually starting to believe that’s at
least part of the reason that another, more controversial issue for long-time
fans of the show is about to resurface big time as the new season begins this
week.
I am now going
to address the Jeopardy producers directly for the rest of the article. (Ahem)
I have been a
huge fan of this show for thirty years. I am very aware that the last three
years have been difficult to say to the least for this iconic show.
You handled the
passing of Alex Trebek clumsily, if I’m being charitable. You had time to come up with an alternative
and you completely dropped the ball. The guest host situation was even more
poorly handled and everything involved Matt Davies was far worse.
I had faith
that the players would keep the show alive and we all were proven correct. That
has allowed me to overlook some questionable decisions that the show has been
making in the past year. I did not much care for the change in the format of
the 2022 Tournament of Champions particularly in the finals. You were fixing
something that, in my opinion, was not broken but I figured given everything
that had happened the past two years the show was entitled to make some
changes. Your decisions to move into prime time have more than delivered, both
when it comes to Celebrity Jeopardy and the Masters Tournament. I would hope to
see your Prime Time College Championship resume for at some point.
You’ve had to
deal with some more controversies this year, many of which are the result more
of internet trolling (which I suppose was in inevitable) and everything
involved the WGA and SAG-AFTRA’s strikes. I defended your behavior quite a bit
during this latter period, though I’ll be honest, the show hasn’t made it easy.
I grant you the recycled clues thing is a complete canard and you should have
explained it better to your fans. It’s harder to defend the show’s decision to
go about business as usual while everything else has shutdown and I think there
will be repercussions considering the Tournament of Champions whenever it
happens this year. I realize that this is the 40th season of
Jeopardy and you might have felt that you owed it to us the fans to keep the
lights on. I have had my issues with the
work stoppage in recent weeks and am inclined to agree that there an argument
for your position.
However this
brings me to a format I absolutely cannot defend – even though I actually defended
it last year.
When you
announced the Second Chance Tournament leading up to last season, I tried to
keep a more open mind than many of my fellow fans. I said that this went
against everything of the past thirty seven years of Jeopardy and that
it seemed the equivalent of giving a participation trophy. I then went back
through all eighteen players you ended up invited back to last year’s tournament
and in good conscience could only find a rational case for eleven of them. I
was also willing to give you some rope and let the tournament play out.
I now realize I
exercised too much restraint. The fact is your actions in the Second Chance
Tournament are the kind of thing that I believe the man your stage is named for
would be spinning in his grave about. Because while Jeopardy might be willing
to rank its champions, to extend an invitation back to players who failed the
first time goes against everything not only Jeopardy but game shows themselves
stand for. It is the decision to invite a student who completely failed a test
an invitation to get to the Honor roll by having them take the exact same test
against seventeen other students who failed the exact same exam.
And just to be
clear; as good as Jessica Stephens and Rowan Ward might have been when they won
their Second Chance Finals, it does not change the fact that when they were up
against players who had actually won several games both demonstrated how
inadequate they were to task. Rowan Ward can at least use the excuse that their
opponent John Focht ran away with the game in Double Jeopardy. Jessica Stephens
has no such defense. I have been watched Jeopardy for thirty years: I don’t remember
the last time I ever saw anyone register a score of ---$5800 in a
regular season game, much less in a Tournament of Champions.
I was willing
to let all of that pass because I figured given everything that had happened in
the interim involving the 2022 Tournament lineup, it was a one time thing. I
did not expect you to essentially double down on it the way you have in what
will be the start of this season.
I have listed
below for my fellow readers a complete list of the 27 players who have been
invited back for a second chance. I did an extensive amount of research on Jeopardy
archive to see if these players (who in some cases extend back to the Alex
Trebek era) had any qualifications. I intended to list all of the reasons I
thought some of them were but by the time I got to Week 3, I had lost heart.
Because while there was at least some justification (however thin) for the
majority of the players who were invited back in 2022, even the most reckless
contorting of the facts make it impossible to come up with a justification for
even a third of them.
It was one
thing to invite players back who had nearly defeated Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider
or Mattea Roach. One thing to invite back to player who ended up being the one
left out between Amodio and Jonathan Fisher. One thing to include players who
lost in tiebreakers. But that all only applied because these were extraordinary
players. How do you justify someone coming back who ended up being defeated by
a four time or five time player? How do you justify someone who lost between two
three game champions (Donna Vorreyer). In at least four cases, the sole
justification for extending an invitation seems to be that these players were
leading in Final Jeopardy and got it wrong. I don’t have to tell anyone who
watched the show for even a short time how low a bar that is to be invited
back. This is why they’re called consolation prizes.
And to be clear
it was bad enough when you invited eighteen players back in 2022. But twenty-seven
former players? In a regular season (if you included the number of
tournaments say in 2018) that’s a participant in one out of every seven
games. I realize how much effort it
takes to win at least one game on Jeopardy, let alone five, but to just lower
to the bar on the show to say, ‘close is good enough’, well, this is
ridiculous.
I have to say what
you’re doing is the kind of thing that I could easily see a right-wing publication
or network railing about if they had the inclination. To be clear, if they did
I would completely agree with them and that’s before you get to the
optics. I know that Jeopardy has had problem in recent years including sexist
behavior behind the scenes and outrage from minority contestants. At this point, I am really starting to wonder
if in addition to every else, the Second Chance Tournament is a backhanded way
to try and get around these issues.
It did not
escape my attention that in the first Second Chance Tournament, ten of the
eighteen players invited back were women. One of them was non-binary and three
were minorities. I was willing to let that slide though I found that very
questionable. Now among the 27 players invited back, there are eleven woman and
more than half a dozen minorities. I like to consider myself reasonable but
someone far less cynical then me can only look at this and figure that Jeopardy
is trying to solve its minority problem this way. We’re not quite at the
level of just saying that if you’re a woman or a person of color or an LGBTQ+
you don’t even have to win a game to make it to the Tournament of Champions,
but this is as close to that argument as the show seems to be making. If the talking
heads were to argue that Jeopardy was becoming woke or acting out
affirmative action, I don’t know how anyone could argue otherwise certainly not
myself. At best, it sounds like the producers heard the comments from the
trolls above and decided to give in; at worst, it’s a negation of the last four
decades.
And it’s not
like the most recent crop of champions from Season 39 is just a lot of white
men as it frequently was the first decade of the show’s run. Hannah Wilson is the second transgender female
to qualify for the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. Ben Chan is one of the
most recent in superb Asian-American players the show has had in the last
decade. Suresh Krishnan may have performed poorly in six wins on the show (not
as well Luigi De Guzman) but they are both among the best minority players in
recent years. I don’t deny Jeopardy troubled
history with female and minority champions over its run – I’ve made those same
arguments at great length over the years -
but just opening the door and invited any Jeopardy contestant who
happens to meet a specific quota – and that’s what the Second Chance Tournament
seems to be its heart - looks horrible
on any level.
One of the
producers joked when they created the Second Chance Tournament that they might
have ‘broken the show.’ That’s not a joke in this context. This decision is one of the worst the show has made in forty years and not
because it seems to make a systemic change in order to give the appearance of a
cosmetic one. I don’t see any end result
where this tournament doesn’t end up reflecting badly on Jeopardy short
term or long term. Are we coming to the
point where when Ken and Mayim announce the results of the game, they’ll have
to say to both the losing contestants: “You played a good game. Maybe we’ll see
you in the Second Chance Tournament.” Because once Jeopardy reaches that point –
where the losers have as much a chance as getting invited back as the winners –
then there really isn’t much point to keep Jeopardy going on any longer.
You might as well have Johnny Gilbert announce at the beginning: “Please
welcome tonight’s future champions.” A bit extreme? Maybe. But it does seem we’re
heading in that direction.
Below is a
complete list of the 27 players who are going to compete in the next three
weeks. I initially tried to give an explanation
as to why they might have been invited back for a second chance. After it
became so difficult to comprehend I gave up. I have listed their names and in
many cases the dates. The best site for this information is j-archive.com. You
want to look through them yourselves and explain why they deserve a second
chance, knock yourself out.)
Jeopardy
Second Chance:
Season
37
Jill
Tucker
Played Between Zack Newkirk and Brian
Chang
Gabriel
Ostler
Was
defeated by Ryan Hemmel, four game Jeopardy winner
Derek
Allen
June
7, 2021 Reasons Unclear
Susan
Schulman
Was
leading in Final Jeopardy on May 13, 2021
David
Marbury
Was
leading going into Double Jeopardy lost $10,000 on Daily Double. Got Final
jeopardy right. Opponent got it wrong.
Cody
Lawrence
December
8, 2020 Unknown
Hari
Parameswaran
Tied
for The LEAD AT THE END OF April 28,2021. Got Final Jeopardy wrong.
Matt
Wierman
March
8, 2021.Was Leading for Much of the Game. Got Both Daily Doubles
In
Double Jeopardy wrong and lost lead. Therefore lost the game.
Donna
Vorreyer
Lost
to Three Game winner Patrick Hume and came between 3 game winner Mike Nelson.
Elliott
Goodman
Was
leading at the end of Double Jeopardy at the end of May 5, 2021 Game. Got Final
Jeopardy right but didn’t bet enough to win.
Deanna
Bolio
Was
Leading Andy Wood at the end of Game 3 of his original run. Got Final Jeopardy
wrong.
Matt
Walks
Was
in first place at end of Double Jeopardy on March 18, 2021. Got Final Jeopardy
wrong
Morgan
Halvorsen
Narrowly
lost to John Focht, 2022 Jeopardy Tournament of Champions Semi-Finalist
Elizabeth
Devereaux
Was
beaten in Matt Amodio’s first win.
Rob
Kim
February
5, 2021 Unknown
Alex
Lamb
Competed
against Tim Moon July 13, 2021
Brian
Ross
Was
leading in Final Jeopardy September 21, 2020. Only player to get Final jeopardy
wrong
Pam
Sung
Was
leading in Final Jeopardy February 16, 2021. Got Final Jeopardy wrong.
Elaine
Filadelfo
June
18, 2021
Colin
Beazley
April
29, 2021
Jilana
Cotter
Michaelle
Gould
Ollie
Savage
February
26, 2021
David
Kaye
Brayden
Smith Game 5
Mark
Lucas
Courtney
Shah Game 6
Allison
Pistorius
July
19, 2021
Barb Fecteau
Matt
Amodio Game 5
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