Yeah, seems to me that she’s had strong competition in only one of her games.
How all three could have missed the “Catherine Willows/CSI” question the other day is just beyond me. How quickly some forget! :smack: 
My DVR automatically finds those late night “make good” episodes.
That whole category was a dark hole for me. Even when I heard the answers there was not even a spark of recognition. (And I’m not one of those pretentious anti TV snobs. I just don’t know the names of the actors.)
If you think it easy to be a game show host, you didn’t see Vanna White filling in for Pat Sajak on Wheel of Fortune this past week.
Catherine Willows was the name of the character; the actress’s was Marg Helgenberger. They gave them both.
Anyway, a “stripper turned crimefighter” should have sparked at least one contestant’s memory, I would think.
They even referred to her as “a forensic investigator.”
The original ***CSI ***was the number-one show for *how *long?
And on top of that long run of popularity, there’s also the fact that CSI has entered popular culture as the name of an effect on juries of television crime-solving conventions (mainly that the crimes are solved quickly and with lots of very clear forensic evidence available).*
So it is surprising that this was apparently obscure knowledge to those contestants.
*CSI effect - Wikipedia
since he’s 79 and battling cancer seems like this big tourney could be his swan song.
She’s devoid of personality, and don’t they have stylists for the contestants??? She needs a gay.
Here is a way the producers can subtly (subliminally?) encourage the players to follow the traditional strategy of going down a complete category without making it a rule.
At the beginning of the show, before they reveal the categories for the first round, they fill in the money values of each square. It appears to be random, but it’s always the same sequence (shades of Press Your Luck). Instead, I suggest that they fill in the grid going down each column from left to right. In my mind’s eye that would also be more aesthetically pleasing.
Or is this another one if those petty, picayune, superfluous details that some fans are attached to strictly because “that’s how it’s always been?”
You are probably right. I should gave characterized my quest as “quixotic.”
Nevertheless, I say the producers don’t take this rule very seriously. They don’t even enforce it in the first round. In the second round, on the rare occasion a contestant doesn’t start their response with “What is…” Trebek gives them a polite reminder.
Has anybody ever seen a contestant penalized for neglecting to preface a correct response with that phrase?
Yes, and in Final Jeopardy too.
This was back in the '80s; the contestant wrote the correct response (“Asia”) but didn’t phrase it on the form of a question. As I recall, he lost all his money and the champion spot.
There have been other examples over the years, but this is the one which really sticks in my mind.
I would think the local station that is the highest bidder or has the highest ratings gets to run Jeopardy.
I think that you’re incorrect about how this is handled. In the first round Alex will remind you. In the second round he won’t. What often happens in the second round is that the contestant says the answer and Alex doesn’t respond at all, which prompts the contestant to realize that they said it wrong.
From 5 JEOPARDY! RULES EVERY CONTESTANT SHOULD KNOW (note that this is on jeopardy.com):
I know that it happened at least as recently as June 30, 2018. I know that because it was a game that I was taking part in. I wasn’t the one who made that mistake, fortunately, but one of my competitors did. He said “The Mersey,” Alex said no, and the other contestant (also not me) rang in to say “What is The Mersey?” She got money, he lost money.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s happened again since then, but that one I know for a fact! 
In Double Jeopardy, Alex will not prompt you if you get your phrasing wrong. He’ll just call you incorrect.
It may have been in response to that incident, or others like it, that they began telling contestants during the break before FJ, to write on their screen, “What is,” or “Who is,” etc., before the round started. They were doing it in 1991 when I played.
I don’t recall it specifically, but there was at least one other foul-up around the time of the “Asia” response. So much so that Alex told the contestants to make sure their response was in the form of a question because “we have had some tragedies lately on the show.”
One incident I do remember from this period was also in Final Jeopardy: The response (about Washington, DC) was phrased in the form of a question, but it should have read “What is the Capitol?” Instead, it was “What is the Capital?”
Which, of course, means something else entirely.
Yes, the “Asia” incident could have been in 1990 or '91; I was out of the country from September '89 through June '90 (and then at language school until August '90).
Thanks to tetentii, commasense, & MrAtoz for the examples.