One of the oddities of next year's
Tournament of Champions is that not a single female player qualified for it
save for Mina Kimes in this year's Celebrity Jeopardy All-Stars. What's more
there was no way to stretch the rules to do so. Not only did no female
contestant win four games, no female contestant won as many as three. Indeed
ever since Allegra Kuney no female player managed to win as many as two games.
While in past years this would have
been the focus of immense online chatter there's been surprisingly little
pushback, which is understandable considering that everyone will be watching to
see how well Jamie Ding does against the likes of Adam Remsen and Caleb Groen,
each of whom won 12 games. Still it was
relatively striking how few female players did well during Season 42, the first
time during the post-Trebek era that this was the case.
So one of the more interesting stories
of Season 43 so far is that for the first time in almost a year female
contestants are doing much better. Indeed during the last two weeks we've had
nothing but female champions which has been the first time in recent memory
(and distant memory) that this happened on Jeopardy. Now for reasons I'll get
to in a bit there's only one of them we'll be seeing for certain in the 2028
Tournament of Champions. But it's still worth paying attention to them.
On October 23rd Shannon
Leigh Godwin brought an end to the reign of Anthony Cantor in superb fashion
winning $16,001. She then managed two consecutive runaway victories. But on
October 28 2026 she went up against Stefanie Landeweer and Spencer Murphy and
went into Final Jeopardy in a distant
third.
The Final Jeopardy category was a new
one: CURRENT TV STREAKS. The longest-tenured male actor on a primetime show,
he released the now ironically titled album 'Home Invasion' back in 1993. Shannon
knew the correct actor was Ice-T. (As Ken pointed out: "He now
investigates home invasions and other crimes on Law & Order: SVU; he's
been playing Fin Tutuola for over 25 years, if you can believe it.) So did
Stefanie. Spencer thought it was Tim Allen. Shannon's streak ended with $40,602
and Stephanie was the new champion with $19,400.
Stefanie made it to the end of the
week when she faced off against Erica Doornek and Sam Neal. Stefanie and Erica
were dead even the entire game both getting 18 correct answers. But the
difference may have come in wrong answers: Erica only got one and Stefanie got
three. One of them was the last Daily Double in YOU SLAYED ME!
"King Laius (it was patricide).
Stefanie couldn't figure it out and neither could I. It's because even the man
who did it didn't know it was patricide; the clue referred to Oedipus. This
cost Shannon $2000 and the lead. It came down to Final Jeopardy.
The category was ART & ARTIST.
"Commenting on a work by this artist, MoMA noted 'his initial experiments
with the effects of gravity & momentum on falling paint." All three
players knew the clue referred to Jackson Pollock and Erica became the new
champion with an impressive $23,500.
Now Erica's run on Jeopardy was
interrupted in most markets because of election night coverage. So ABC did her
a mitzvah and showed her entire run this week when it past years they might
have just skipped over it. It was a good one, particularly in what was her
fourth win. In that one she met a solid challenger in Alexandra Field who kept
close to her throughout and finished with $14,400 to Erica's $20,200. (The
third player spent much of the game in the red and was lucky to have $1000
going into Final Jeopardy.
The category was SHAKESPEARE: 'In Act
III, scene 1 of a play, "Exeunt King Claudius' & another man; then
there's an entrance and these 6 words are spoken." Alexandera knew the
correct six words: "What is to be or not to be?" However she only
wagered $1995. Erica clearly didn't know it but had fun:
"What is…Go Griz, Go
Scotties?" Ken joked: "This is Montana Shakespeare to laughter. But
Erica had the last laugh because she wagered nothing. She won another $20,200
and became the first woman to qualify for a Tournament of Champions outright
since Allegra Kuney last November.
Then on Thursday's game (which was
aired on Friday in most markets) she went up against Cameron Bays and Betty
Hume in one of the best games of the season. Again she got off to a big lead in
the Jeopardy round but in Double Jeopardy both Cameron and Betty made her work
for it. The woman of the hour was Betty when she found the last Daily Double in
LITERARY LANDMARKS. She was in a distant third with $7800 and she decided to
bet it all:
Tennessee Williams said he hoped he'd
die in his townhouse on Dumaine St. in this city but it happened in a Manhattan
hotel. Betty figured it out: "What is New
Orleans?" She doubled her score and went into the lead. The rest of the
round was a back and forth between them and it ended with Erica in the lead
with $17,000 to Betty's $16,000. Cameron had a very impressive $10,700.
The Final Jeopardy category was
RELIGION. John Calvin, on this artifact: 'Either St. John is a liar, or all
those who boast of possessing Holy Sudary are'.
Cameron's response was: "What is
Shroud of Turin?" That was correct. (Ken Jennings: "Calvin thought
that the appearance of the shroud seems to contradict the description of Jesus'
burial the gospels." Cameron bet nothing. Betty also had the Shroud of
Turin. She bet $5000 to go into the lead with $21,000. However Erica didn't
have it and even she had it wouldn't have helped because she bet $1000. Betty
Hume, the retired law librarian became the new Jeopardy champion with $21,000
and Erica left with 4 wins and $72,401.
Betty's run came to an end yesterday
as Curtis Parker became the first male player to win a game in two weeks. Still
the last two weeks have been a more impressive time for female champions than
almost all of Season 42.
So far in Season 43 no one has managed
to win five games, something that no one has managed to win exactly since TJ
Fisher last October. This is more of a statistical anomaly and really when five
players win ten games or more, who cares? However since we seem to be going
back to the olden days of fifteen players in a Tournament of Champions (yea!)
it's unlikely that Shannon Leigh Godwin will qualify on her own merits. However
she will definitely qualify for a Champions Wild Card Spot and its nearly
certain Betty Hume and Stefanie Landeweer will be there too. And you'll also
definitely see another female 2 day champion Jennifer Leavey, who managed to
win $50,801 in the third week of the season.
I'll be back with another Season 43
update at the end of the month or when someone manages to win five games or
more, whatever comes first.
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