Jeopardy! Reveals Season 40 Changes And Fans Are Not Happy
With the WGA strike coming to an end, plans for Season 40 of Jeopardy! are back on track, but fans aren’t too happy with the schedule. According to TVInsider, producers Michael Davies and Sarah Whitcomb Foss announced that there won’t be new contestant episodes until April 2024. In the meantime, the Season 39 post-season will continue with numerous different tournaments, so fans won’t be completely starved of new episodes of the trivia show.
Jeopardy! is returning for Season 40, but fans are frustrated over the number of upcoming tournaments.
However, it appears fans are getting a bit tired of nothing but Jeopardy! tournaments, with one fan on Reddit saying, “Too many “special” tournaments and too many second chances,” adding, “All of this is diluting the value of a regular game,” with many others stating their agreement. However, if you don’t mind the tournament format, there will be a lot for you to like in the coming months. The show is currently airing the Champions Wildcard tourney, which features returning contestants from Seasons 37 and 38.
Jeopardy! will follow up the Champions Wildcard tournament with a Second Chance tournament that features contestants from Season 39 before moving on to another Champions Wildcard that features former Season 39 champs. Finally, the post-season will culminate with the always-anticipated Tournament of Champions. Foss hyped the tournament up on the show’s official podcast, saying that the Tournament of Champions would feature the biggest field of competitors in the tournament yet.
The upcoming Jeopardy! tournaments mean no new contestants will be featured until April 2024.
Foss also brought up the Invitational Tournament and the Jeopardy! Masters Tournament would also be making a return. The trivia series was able to get back on track for its upcoming season, with the WGA writers returning to the writer’s room after the end of the strike. While the strike was ongoing, the trivia series was able to continue running by using recycled material and material written before the strike began.
It’s unclear how long Jeopardy! would have been able to sustain this, but now it looks like they won’t have to worry about it. While the WGA strike was ongoing, co-host Ken Jennings opted to continue doing the show, while his other co-host, Mayim Bialik, opted to stand in solidarity with the writers. Bialik has not announced anything official about returning, so it seems Ken Jennings will continue his solo hosting duties for the time being.
Mayim Bialik, as part of the still-striking SAG-AFTRA, has not announced a return to Jeopardy!.
Although the WGA strike has ended, the actor’s union, SAG-AFTRA, is still on strike and waiting for the studios represented by the AMPTP to come to the negotiating table with agreeable terms. With Bialik being a member of SAG-AFTRA and a strong supporter of the strikes, it’s possible she may opt to wait until the SAG-AFTRA strike ends before returning to host Jeopardy! However, since the series doesn’t feature actors, it is able to continue making new episodes with writers alone.
Whether you’re disappointed about waiting until April 2024 for new contestant episodes of Jeopardy! or not, you can at least take solace in the fact that new episodes are still coming in. April may seem like a long time to wait for new episodes, but it’s better than the show having an uncertain release date for these episodes. As another Reddit user said, “The other option was no new Jeopardy at all during the writer’s strike, so take your pick.”
