A Refresher As The New Seasonof Jeopardy Begins

 

First things first. For those of you who might not necessarily read my columns on the Emmys Jeopardy won the Emmy for Outstanding Game Show this past September.

Those who are cynical both about the relevance of the Emmys and of Season 40 overall might say that this is more proof that the Emmys are meaningless. I’m willing to concede that its victory may be more due to the fact of a habit the Emmys has for, well, almost every other major award: win one year and you will keep winning over and over no matter how much you decline in quality. That’s pretty much the Emmys history during my entire lifetime and its only until fairly recently that it seems to be breaking these habits – gradually.  The only reason it won this year may very well have been that it won last year.

Still we have to argue that there might be something to it: after all for the second consecutive year Ken Jennings lost Outstanding Game Show Host, this time to Pat Sajak. And considering that many might think the misclassification of Jeopardy in the daytime Emmys instead of the official ones has cost it dozens of awards over the last forty years, I’d say some restitution is in order. Anyway let’s move on to the new season.

Season 41 of Jeopardy has been underway for two weeks. So far it’s clear the writers are back in full fettle: the clues have been far tougher than usual, certainly for me at home and the Final Jeopardys far more difficult. (It took me until the fourth game of the season to get one correctly; the contestants themselves have yet to manage to all answer Final Jeopardy correct.)

Things have changed immensely from last season and indeed the first three full ones in the post-Trebek era. Some of those changes are no doubt in answer to the reaction of the fans after the ‘endless postseason’ that demolished most of Season 40. Others are less promising.

To the relief of untold millions this season has not started with the postseason. I think we can all say an ‘I told you so’ to the producers for thinking that they could control outside events to the point of how the show would work.

Now the bad news. The postseason will still be taking place this year but the official start time will be in early 2025. The Second Chance and Champions Wildcard will lead it off though the producers have promised the fans it will not take nearly as much time as last year. That was a given considering how much of it was due to the work stoppage to begin with but for better or worse, we still seem stuck with it at least for Season 41.

I remain fundamentally opposed to even the principle of the Second Chance Tournament. However, I’m willing to have some wiggle room on Wild Card. The reason is historical. Victoria Groce, who came out of Jeopardy obscurity to win first the Jeopardy Invitational and then the 2024 Jeopardy Masters would have met the qualifications for a Wild Card spot in her original appearance. Considering that the game she won was to defeat David Madden, whose 19 games were the second place total after Ken Jennings for nearly a decade, one could have seen her being invited back had the Wild Card tournament existed. And having seen her play so exceptionally against so many of the greatest players in Jeopardy history – include two Tournament of Champions winners and two previous Jeopardy Masters just to earn her spot – I may very well have to rethink the idea of the Wild Card the same way Ike Barnholtz’s performance in the previous Tournament of Champions has made me rethink Celebrity Jeopardy.

As for the postseason this year it will include only the four tournaments we had this past year. However since it will include both the Tournament of Champions and the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament I’m not complaining. Not yet anyway. And it does seem that both the 27 champion bracket is going to be the standard for the foreseeable future, which as I said I was fine with. And though I know there’s no correlation between that and my suggestion of it, they seem to be following each other very close to the next Masters.

With that in mind here’s a refresher course on everyone who has qualified for the Tournament of Champions. And for the record I’m also going to include everyone who won 3 games during the past season. Considering that in order to fill out the bracket Jeopardy invited them this past March – and since we saw firsthand how brilliant three-game winners can be – I think its worth a look. I will go chronologically.

Lucas Partridge – 3 wins, $66,200

Lucas was the first returning champion after the endless postseason. I would think they owe him more than anybody since he had to wait nearly a year between his last appearance at the end of Season 39 and his next one.

Alison Betts – 5 wins, $121,500

Alison was the first female champion since Hannah Wilson won eight games in May of 2023.

Amy Hummel – 5 Games $100,994

 

Weckiai Rannila  - 3 Games, $35,200

It’s possible Weckiai may end up being invited back as a Wildcard contest, given the rather small total she won. However I’m comfortable in believing she’ll back in some form.

 

Allison Gross – 3 Wins, $44,598

Same standard as Weckiai.

 

Will Stewart – 3 wins, $70,501

Will I feel more comfortable thinking he’ll get an invitation; as you’ll see, he actually won more money in three games than a few more people did in four.

 

Grant DeYoung – 4 wins, $81,203

 

Amar Kakirde, 4 wins, $55,899

 

Adriana Harmeyer – 15 wins, $349,600

Given how much work she needed to win many of her games there will be some legitimate Second Chance competitors playing from her time on Jeopardy.

 

Drew Basile -  7 wins, $129,601

Josh Hait, who only lost to Drew in a tiebreaker will certainly be invited back as a Second Chance competitor. Given the closeness of so many of Drew’s victories quite a few others will come as well.

 

Isaac Hirsch – 9 wins, $215,390

A lot of Isaac’s wins were tough ones so there will be many Second Chance winners.

Jay Fisher -  3 Games, $28,200

He will qualify as a Wild Card if for no other reason than he defeated Isaac.

 

Neilesh Vinjamuri – 3 Games, $53,099

Considering he won nearly as much as Amar did in four games, I think he gets in without having to go through the rigmarole of playing the Wild Card that some of the other players I’ve listed will.

 

While I don’t want to try and predict Wild Card participants if we follow the (admittedly loose) ones of the previous year then sure things include:

Marko Saric (Defeated Alison Betts)

 

Abby Mann (defeated Amar Kakirde, lost to Adriana Harmeyer)

 

Chris D’Amico (Defeated Grant De Young Before Losing to Amar Kakirde)

 

Cat Piscano (Defeated Drew Basile)

 

Beyond that I know better than to speculate.

So even before Season 41 is truly underway, we have eleven spots for the 27 needed to fill out the 2025 Tournament of Champions. The eleventh is the winner of the 2024 Celebrity Jeopardy Tournament Lisa Ann Walter and given how well Ike Barnholtz performance against far more formidable competition, I won’t make the same mistake in selling her short. There are also several borderline qualifiers who will definitely be up in the Wild Cards and no doubt several more that I didn’t list because, well, I’ll save that for when were actually there.

It's already a solid field, definitely more balanced then the one we had for the previous two Tournaments of Champions. And it does help that, compared to last time around when only one female competitor managed to qualify for the Tournament of Champions before the nightmare of the postseason began that we already have four quite formidable female champions. How they’ll do remains to be seen but we won’t have any of the frequently silly arguments we had at the end of Season 39 wondering how we could have a Tournament of Champions with only a single female participant.

As you all know I’ll revisit the show as the season progresses. Expect to hear from me either at the end of September or when someone qualifies  for the Tournament of Champion, whichever comes first.