Today’s episode, with all the no answers and second answers and um answers really threw off Levar Burton’s first day. Usually the first day for a new host is a bit awkward, but this was really painful for us the viewers, and I’m sure for Mr. Burton as well.
It seemed to me that Burton had the most awkward moments in one game of all the guest hosts so far.
I thought I was accidentally watching an SNL Celebrity Jeopardy! instead.
Sadly, I had to miss today’s episode. The only channel that shows Jeopardy, that I get, is pre-empting it for Olympics coverage. I would have liked to see how Levar Burton did, but I guess I will have to catch it on YouTube later.
Even Wolf Blitzer’s eyes were rolling.
The other two contestants weren’t much better. This episode was hard to watch.
-$7400. The poor guy must be feeling awful.
Among the more embarrassing performances I’ve seen is one guy who during the post-commercial chat segment revealed his daughter had been on the show some years before and placed second, and then he himself proceeded to finish at something like -$3000.
I felt so sorry for him. He had a couple of bad questions, and then he just couldn’t dig back out. Strategically, he seemed to be doing the right things and just couldn’t find the answers at the right moment.
I more had the impression that for most of the game he was a standard-issue weak contestant, someone who maybe just had trouble performing under the pressure of a live game. But then, halfway through Double Jeopardy, finding himself still in the red and so far behind Matt, he decided to start throwing a hail Mary pass on every clue, ringing in whenever he could and taking a wild guess even when he had no idea what the right answer was.
That’s what I thought. Plus, when he had the chance to select, he went for the $2000 clues. That seems to be the hip strategy these days, but for most players it seems to backfire.
It’s crazy, but it almost seemed like Returning Champ sometimes strategically let the others answer first, knowing they’d miss it and he’d be that much further ahead.
What happened to the “time’s up” buzzer? Has it been gone for a while, or just missing yesterday? There was definitely some confusion over whether an answer was wrong, or just too late. Seems that was especially difficult for a first-time guest host, with no innate feel for the flow of the game, to handle smoothly
Agreed. Of course James Holzhauer won that way, and Ken Jennings was forced to do it to compete with James in the GOAT tournament and it worked for him too, but most people just aren’t that good. Matt seems to be making it work most of the time, but it’s really annoying when you get a match with three just average players (like the second-place lady last night) and they all keep doing it. In cases like those, the game would be better for everyone–contestants and viewers–if they just started at the top and ran down each category one at a time like they used to.
I can’t find a clip right now to verify this, but was there ever a “time’s up” buzzer for when a contestant rings in but can’t come up with an answer? There’s the “boop-boop-boop” sound when no one rings in after a certain length of time, but when someone rings in and then takes too long, wasn’t it always just Alex saying “sorry, time’s up”?
I haven’t done the math (and unless I become a Jeopardy contestant, I won’t). But, very early into double jeopardy, he was so far below the line that his only way out was to get the $2000 clues and get them right (basically, buzz in and hope you know the answer just to keep someone else from buzzing in first and getting the points on a question you could have answered). If he’d gone top down, he would have needed to be first to the buzzer and get all the questions right on a lot more questions. Even when the questions are (arguably) easier, that’s harder to do.
It seems (again, haven’t done the math), that if you’re all three, pretty evenly matched, pretty non-aggressive players, then top down makes the most sense. But if it’s unbalanced or you have a really dominant or aggressive player, not so much.
The contestants finish the boards most of the time these days, so taking the bottom clues first doesn’t make more money available. In fact, it seem to me that the only time they don’t clear the board is when there are a lot of wrong answers. Picking the easy clues would have given him a chance to get on a roll, get a little confidence, and get more of a sense of what each category was about. That gives him a better chance of getting the high-value clues later.
My question about strategy is whether to take my favorite category first or save it for the end. If the Daily Double is in a category I’m good at, I’d like to build up a bit of a bankroll so I can bet big. Once the Daily Doubles are gone, pick your strongest categories.
Regarding clearing the board regularly - didn’t there used to be a commercial break during DJ? (now there isn’t - only during the regular part before they interview the contestants.). Did they extend the commercial break between DJ and FJ to make up for it? It seems that there is more active “game time” available now.
Not since I started watching the show, so for at least 15+ years. If they ever had a commercial there during the early days, I don’t know. In that time at least it’s always been break mid-Jeopardy round, return and do contestant interviews, finish Jeopardy round, another commercial, play Double Jeopardy in full, commercial break, Final Jeopardy.
I vaguely remember the contestant interviews at a different point; perhaps just before the second round? This could easily have been more than two decades ago.
Last year they replayed a few first season episodes, and I don’t recall that being any different.
Which is another thing that annoys me when they all keep going for the highest-value clues first. Sometimes they’ll do that and it will result in like three triple-stumpers in a row, which wastes a lot of time. Then they don’t clear the board that round, and there will be a couple of top-row clues left which we never get to find out what they were.
It’s been working pretty well for the current champion, Matt Amodio, who has been starting at the bottom row and working up, kind of like Holzhauer did. Amodio was averaging over $30,000 per game in his first six shows, and tonight finished with $74,000, a one-game total only three other players have reached, including Holzhauer (17 times!), Ken Jennings, and Roger Craig in 2010.
Amodio is on his way to being the next Jennings or Holzhauer. Very exciting!