By now my guess is that the episodes now airing were taped after the writers’ strike ended.
That sounds right. I don’t know what the lag is now, but my episode, taped in March 2006, aired in July.
They really could keep going forever. Not only sixth and seventh and eighth-chance tournaments, but Second Chance for people from twenty and thirty years ago. Go, Seniors!
Sure, there’s money being made by Jeopardy!. But every producer wants to be known for making even MORE money, whether by saving on production costs or getting the ratings up or both. It’s very career-enhancing to become known for that.
Good points. Selection-by-willingness-to-answer-unknown-number must be being studied somewhere, likely in connection with political polling. There probably is a definite psychological profile attached.
As for the strike situation: it may be rationalizing, but somehow I don’t associate ‘coming up with a trivia question’ with ‘writing an episode of Succession.’ I mean, both are skills. And I can imagine how difficult it is for the Jeopardy staff to come up with two boards of thirty questions each, per show, given that nowadays they are expected to theme those questions in a way that will elicit surprise and pleasure.
But technically, they don’t HAVE to do the cute theming; they just need sixty trivia questions. The writing skill involved in coming up with sixty questions certainly differs from the writing skill involved in writing that cable-drama episode. I’m sorry to seem dismissive or lacking in proper respect, but I guess to some extent…I am.
Anyway, if the Jeopardy staff IS covered by the new strike-won rules (do we know that?), I hope they made out well. And I apologize to them, if they are covered by the new rules, for having watched the show all this time. (If they’re NOT covered by whatever was won in the strike, then…well, I wish them well anyway.)
Don’t forget, other unions, including SAG-AFTRA, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Teamsters supported the Writers strike. Would Ken (or Mayim) have crossed a picket line? Would the director?
So production was effectively shut down. The fastest way to get things up and running was to use old questions while writing new ones, and to reuse old contestants while selecting new ones.
Makes sense.
(But I bet it saved money as compared with the ‘standard practice when no strikes exist’ way of doing things.)
If saving money was the primary objective, wouldn’t repeating shows from years ago been the most cost effective?
[only half joking]
I think it would have been fun if they could have got a bunch of the players that Ken Jennings beat during his run and gave them a second chance.
If they got rid of all the tournaments, and never spoke of them again, would anyone be nostalgic for them?
I tend to like the tournaments (including the newly-invented ones) because at least we viewers have some assurance that the players won’t freeze as often or decline to ring in for numerous questions in a row (as can happen with new players, or at least can happen more frequently).
In other words, to my mind, the gameplay is more interesting in the tournaments. But on the other hand, a policy of ‘no new players ever’ would deprive us of the possibility of being surprised by someone really out of the ordinary. (One hopes in a good way!)
It’s 2024, do we need a new thread? Or perhaps a new title for this one?
At any rate, today’s Jeopardy had perhaps the 3 highest pre-final-jeopardy scores that I can recall. Certainly, it’s not often that a score of $15,000 finishes in 3rd place. The other two scores were $18,200 and $19,000.
There is a thread for the current season.
Looks like it’s been abandoned since October and everyone went back to this one. I hadn’t noticed until just now.
Well, since this isn’t really a “season” we’re enduring, we can keep this one.
Yes, I just watch the games and don’t care about the players*, but still - what exactly is the format for this championship? Normal championships have a structure. We know how it plays out. Round 1, round 2, semi finals, finals. They end!
But this, every time I think they’re done, the start over with some new second chance people. It’s like a Twilight Zone nightmare episode! We keep having THE Second Chance Championship. over and over and over…
*But I am glad that doofus on our left lost two true DDs. I hate it when they get “characters” on the show.
I think the strike has made it hard to accept new people and so they are doing the best that they can?
But the contestants aren’t in the union!
I’m surprised that last night’s FJ was a triple-stumper. I guess no one remembers Paul Robeson.
Once I got my head beyond musicals (“Ol’ Man River”) I figured it out before time was up. Whether I could have done it on stage is another question entirely.
A bunch of past champions did not want to participate in the Tournament of Champions while writers were on strike.
Now that the strike has ended (October 9, 2023) , not sue when we will get “new” episodes, this article says February:
Brian
YES! In both games the excruciating showboating during the intros was bad enough, then he seemed to me to be projecting a vibe of “got this sucker in the bag” cockiness. All hat and no cattle as it turned out.
What slightly annoys me about the current, endless round of tournaments is that they start on Tuesdays and end on Mondays, with the two-game finals on Friday and Monday. Their old tournaments were set up to last over two weeks, starting on Monday and ending on Friday the following week.