Unfortunately, his episodes have already been taped. Looks like this was a Sony cross-promotion thing.
Eek! agree too!
That’s a good idea. Really good.
I have seen Mayim Bialik’s new show. While I think she is personally turning out good performances, I don’t think the show is a winner, and won’t last. I’d still like to see her as a host.
Someone at the Facebook group for Jeopardy Contestants has created a petition here. I’ve signed and if you are a former contestant, I urge you to do so as well.
Are you sure that they’ve already been taped?
According to what I’ve read, yes: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jeopardy/comments/lcjxgb/andy_saunders_on_twitter_dr_oz_episodes_were/
Damn, this means they’ll have to air his shows, for the sake of the unfortunate players who appeared on them, no matter how loud the protests. That sucks.
For me this is an instant toss-up between Brian Doyle Murray or Terence Stamp.
OK, we have executive producer Mike Richards for 2 weeks, then Katie Couric, then Dr Oz (Ugh), then Aaron Rodgers.
(Most of these were known I believe). Rodgers and Bialik are the ones I’m most interested in seeing.
Brian
I’m glad this producer dude is just filler while they waited for Couric to be able to tape her episodes. He’s not AWFUL, just…aggressively bland. Bland would be OK, if he just became part of the set and the contestants were basically driving things - far from ideal, but better than coating the whole thing in a layer of meh. I wasn’t impressed with Ken (I know I’m very much in the minority, there), but he was better than this.
Sam Stapleton, the current champ, whose “reign” spanned the transition from Ken to Mike Richards, posted this on the Jeopardy! Contestants’ Facebook group:
With Mike Richards’ run starting this week, I thought some of you might be interested in what I experienced as the contestant who taped with both Ken and Mike.
Everything about Mike’s appearance screams “last minute decision.” The shows that aired this past week taped back on December 16th. At that taping, Ken’s intros repeatedly promoted the upcoming Tournament of Champions – the original intro and ending to my show on Friday indicated that the show would be taking two weeks off for the TOC, and I was under the impression when I left that day that there would be a break between my appearances.
When I returned for the next taping on January 11th, I was surprised to find out that the TOC hadn’t taped, and that the air dates had been moved up. Basically, in between December 16th and January 11th, COVID spiked again in LA, the state put in a bunch of travel restrictions, and things shut back down again even more than they already were. As you saw last week, all the references to the TOC were edited out.
In the pre-show briefing, we were immediately told that there would be a new guest host. The briefing definitely had a different tone – in addition to all the usual stuff, there was a lot of “please be patient,” “key in on the written clue because the host might misread,” etc. When they told us it would be Mike, we were also notified that he would be doing the rehearsal as well, just to give him as much time as possible to get prepared.
The downside of all this was that the taping took a lot longer than with Ken – more stops and starts, more questions, etc. But the upside was that Mike was incredibly friendly and made a genuine effort to make contestants relax and feel at home. Ken’s taping was very buttoned up; taping with Mike had a “we’re all in this together” vibe, and personally, I felt a lot more relaxed as a result. I’ll be interested to see how that all translates to the screen.
From everything I can tell, Mike’s appearance stemmed directly from COVID restrictions. It seemed like the end of Ken’s run was pre-planned, but that the upcoming guest host had to pull out at the last minute. (If I remember correctly, Mike references this in his intro to tonight’s show). I don’t have inside knowledge, but I got the sense that this was a choice between Mike stepping in or cancelling the taping altogether. I appreciate that they made the decision to keep it going.
Obviously as a current contestant I can’t say much more without spoiling anything, but I thought I’d throw in my perspective as we go into this new week of shows.
I thought Mike Richards did just fine. Seemed really polished, but that makes sense. He’s been around a few games of Jeopardy I suppose. Yeah, kind of bland, but the show should be about the contestants.
Mike did okay, especially when you consider he had no on-screen experience. But I still prefer Ken.
Hard to put my finger on exactly what bothered me about Mike Richards - he just didn’t seem “real.” Trying a little bit too hard to sell us something. Too pep talky.
I’ll be interested in seeing Katie Couric but in my opinion Ken is already better than Trebek ever was.
Thanks for posting that–very interesting.
Now if only we could get as full an explanation of the reasoning behind inviting Dr. Oz… (It would have to come from network executives, presumably–something to do with ‘attracting a different audience’ or such, I suppose.)
I enjoyed Ken Jennings run as host. He relaxed and got better every week. I’ve read he’ll contribute as consulting producer for awhile.
I’m leaning towards Ken as permanent host.
I’ll reserve my decision until seeing other people host.
Wouldn’t Mike Richards be one of the people to ask about Dr. Oz?
Yes, he probably knows something about it.
Either people-with-power on the staff of the show wanted Oz, OR people-with-power from the production companies/distributor/syndication channels wanted Oz.
I guess I’d prefer to believe it was folks from the second category.
Actually, he has a bit of game show hosting experience:
Richards is best known as the second host of Beauty and the Geek, and has produced numerous game shows including Weakest Link. Richards was until the end of the 2018–19 season the executive producer of The Price Is Right and Let’s Make a Deal [1] and was a candidate to host The Price is Right before Drew Carey was chosen.[2] Richards hosted GSN’s 2012 revival of The Pyramid [3] and the network’s 2016–17 version of Divided.[4]
[Emphasis mine.]
Huh. I must have missed those.
Richards has been busy producing. He worked with Jimmy Kimmel on Millionaire and he’s the Jeopardy producer.
He’s doing a good job hosting. I wonder if he hosts the practice games where potential players try out?