Jeopardy! Producer Hints Big Change Coming For Show
Iconic quiz show Jeopardy! might be getting a very significant permanent change sometime very soon, according to a producer.
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Jeopardy! fans have been hoping for the announcement of a permanent host for the long-running quiz show for quite some time now, but all they have gotten is goof after controversy after scandal. However, things might finally be turning around. Per Variety, at the recent 2022 Daytimes Emmy, Jeopardy! executive producer Michael Davies revealed the show was getting close to finding a permanent person to stand at the legendary podium, saying “we hope to have a hosting announcement very, very soon. Even more interesting, he hinted there is a big change in format for the show coming:
But with all of our plans for ‘Jeopardy!’ — which is more ‘Jeopardy!,’ not less, more versions —we’re going to need multiple hosts to represent the entire audience, to represent the entire country, in order to take this franchise forward.
Even Jeopardy! executive producer Michael Davies is to be believed (and we hope to trust him with all our hearts), it sounds like the venerable quiz show is switching to having multiple permanent hosts rather than a single person. It is currently unknown whether that means there will be permanent hosts who perform alongside each other on a single episode, whether there will be a rotating series of permanent hosts who take turns, or whether there are plans to launch new versions of the show. There have been rumors for a while now that interim host Mayim Bialik may be tapped to permanently host a regularly-running Celebrity Jeopardy! edition, so perhaps Davies was giving some tacit confirmation as to that.
However, given that Mayim Bialik has recently been at the center of some Jeopardy! (and non-Jeopardy!) incidents, there has to be some doubt as to her permanent presence on the show. Bialik was something of a curious temporary host for the show to begin with, given her record of controversial public statements. A more recent incident in which she had to be overruled mid-episode by show producers after cutting off a contestant mid-answer. She also is currently suffering from a positive case of Covid-19, and we wish a speedy recovery to Mayim Bialik.
On the other hand, the producers of Jeopardy! are not faultless themselves. Even more recently, fans of the show noted an embarrassing typo in the Final Jeopardy round question that made it to broadcast. The show was further knocked by fans for having an overt error in their production after having recently disqualified a contestant for an allegedly “illegible” answer that fans reportedly did not find an issue with.
All of this is the result of the sad passing of longtime legendary host Alex Trebek in 2021. After he had hosted Jeopardy! for literal generations of viewers and become a pop culture icon in his own right, the show was always going to have a difficult time replacing him. However, then-producer Mike Richards instituted a series of guest hosts that was widely seen as a kind of try-out for a new permanent host. The hosts included former champion Ken Jennings (no stranger to controversy himself), Mayim Bialik, Katie Couric, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Anderson Cooper, Aaron Rodgers, and fan-favorite LeVar Burton. Ultimately, Mike Richards announced that he himself would be taking over permanent hosting duties; he stepped down after a single week due to fan reaction and a number of allegations of misconduct and controversial past statements. We can only hope that Jeopardy! is finally coming to the end of this long and tiring road and finds a stable new permanent host (or hosts).
