Jeopardy! Masters has been ordered by ABC.
According to a report published by Deadline, Jeopardy! Masters will see six elite Jeopardy! contestants—Matt Amodio, Sam Buttrey, Andrew He, James Holzhauer, Mattea Roach, and Amy Schneider—will face off against each other, with Ken Jennings tapped to host.
Buttrey, He, and Schneider were the three players who reached the most recent Tournament of Champions final, while Amodio and Roach each had very lengthy win streaks in Seasons 37 and 38. James Holzhauer was a super-champion in 2019, winning that year’s Tournament of Champions, and finished second in 2020’s Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time.
Episodes of the series will be an hour long, with two games per episode.
More information will be posted about this series as it becomes available.
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This is gonna be the most epic matchups of Jeopardy that’s ever happened. I can’t wait.
But I do have one question, and this is coming from someone who’s probably in the top 5 James Holzhauer fans of all time; shouldn’t he be disqualified? Since he competed alongside the host in the GOAT tournament and worked with him on The Chase, I would have assumed that would be enough to disqualify him from any future Jeopardy. Of course, I’m not complaining, but it’s a bit confusing to me.
If ABC and/or Sullivan Compliance says he’s good to go, he’s good to go.
Meh – it’s Michael Davies at his worst, foisting another creation of his for a show that’s becoming over-saturated with his ideas. While some of them are enjoyable additions (the Second Chance tourney, the weekly podcast, the Pluto TV channel, the TuneIn audio episodes), other ones like supersizing the ToC for the first time and creating byes, or bringing back the Celeb tourney in an hour-long format (those were tough to watch when they were just a half hour!), or supersizing the college tourney when it wasn’t needed)… he’s tinkering too much now.
And this Masters tourney just feels hollow, as we just had five of these six in a tourney just two months ago! And adding James will just bring his snark back, as you KNOW he’s gonna take shots at Ken all tourney long. And this show doesn’t need that – AT ALL. James can play the villain all he wants on The Chase, but on the J! stage, it just plays out as rudeness. This show does not need staged reality-show drama like that.
I’m going to respond to these in order.
Oversaturation of ideas – I don’t really mind, I’d rather have more Jeopardy than less Jeopardy.
This year’s ToC format – On the flip side, I know for a fact that a lot of the contestants who would have otherwise got cut were fan favorites (ex. Margaret Shelton), and their inclusion made a lot of people happy. And byes have been a thing since 2005 and the Ultimate Tournament of Champions.
Celebrity Jeopardy – Again, I’d rather have more Jeopardy than less.
College Tournament – That was entirely Mike Richards’ fault. And believe it or not, the format used could have been a lot worse.
Time between this ToC and Masters – A lot of people regurgitating this point have conveniently forgotten that the Greatest of All Time Tournament took place just over a month and a half after James won his ToC.
James – I’m fairly confident that he knows that being snarky might not be the best idea on this show. And at absolute worst, the two of them will take shots at each other. Besides, the selections weren’t picked on personality – they were picked on these players being the best of the best.
To me, the issue is that the time that elapsed, but just the fact of running a tournament where almost all of the contestants have already appeared together in a tournament. If they had waited one season they could’ve added Pannullo and probably at least one more worthy candidate in the field.
Typo: “not the time that elapsed”.
We could’ve been stuck with Mike Richards…
Also, Austin Rogers confirmed on Twitter that this was a Mike Richards decision; Davies is just honoring the contract: https://twitter.com/austintylerro/status/1613602426333831169
don’t like it? Then don’t watch.
This new Masters show, Celeb J!, and the college championship are/were all prime time specials that are done in addition to the regular syndicated shows. So you can continue to just watch the syndicated half hour each weekday and ignore the prime time shows that you’re complaining about.
As for timing between the recent ToC and Masters: the ToC finished airing almost 2 months ago, and I’m sure it will be weeks before Masters is taped, and then probably a month or two before it actually airs. so probably 3 or 4 months between the two when all is said and done
To be fair, I think people are allowed to express concerns without being met with a sea of “well then don’t watch if you don’t like it”.
All that telling people to leave if they don’t like a situation only does is cement the will of the loudest group, and a community is worse off for it.
I think overall this is a positive, but I do heed some of the concerns about over saturation that have been mentioned. I tried watching Celebrity Jeopardy for an episode or two and disliked it…in particular I think something like the “Triple Jeopardy” idea is where you really can get into trouble, find yourself in that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” paradigm. That said, the GOAT tournament was extremely popular. I think people like seeing their favorite contestants, who are typically/often the strongest players, play more Jeopardy! at a very high level. I do agree that they could have waited a bit longer, diversified the field a bit more beyond five people who were just in the TOC plus James Holzhauer. That said, this past year’s TOC field was by most accounts the strongest ever. And one critique of the TOC that I had was that it still allowed for too much variance, particularly in the semis. i.e. Amodio might win that semis matchup six out of ten times, but could easily lose it once. So I think this format where you basically have more Jeopardy! being played in order to determine a winner will really allow the cream to rise to the top. I guess what I’m wondering now is what Andy’s odds are based all the stats he has gathered…though perhaps we won’t get those until the format and all of that is fully revealed?
I see that this “Masters” event, will follow the “GOAT” event, and, the prime time college tourney, two games in an hour format.
James may kid with Ken during the event, they are friends off stage, but the type of “snarkiness” some feel he may show, probably won’t be there. His “high roller” personna should be left behind at the Chase, and, the one he showed during his original run, and, subseqent apearances come out.
An addditional thought, since this will be shown on ABC prime time, would this “Jeopardy Masters” competition serve as a buffer between the now completed Celebrity Jeopady championship and the 2nd “Jeopardy National College Championship” on ABC prime time, presuming that there will be one.
I am hoping that the format will permit someone to lose one game without being eliminated. That is what I didn’t like about the recent tournament of champions. Too many great players suffered a single loss, after which we never got to see them again.
Tom:
Each player will get the same number of games—10—in this event.