Welcome to my latest Sunday Mailbag column! As always, email mailbag@thejeopardyfan.com and I may potentially answer your question in the column!
Where’s My Jeopardy?
A frequent question I’ve gotten over the years asks,
Why did the wrong episode air tonight? Did that happen everywhere?
The following is informed by discussions that I’ve had with friends over the years who work within master control rooms in TV stations.
Basically, Jeopardy! is what is known as syndicated television—essentially, TV stations across the United States and Canada, needing to fill extra time in their schedule, purchase the rights to air TV programs in their markets. (Generally, game shows, court shows, talk shows, “entertainment news” shows, and reruns of prime time programs enter into syndication for local stations to air.)
When it comes to shows like Jeopardy! or Entertainment Tonight, that day’s episode is provided to the local affiliates. (I won’t get into the specific details of exactly how the system works in this column, though). However, the system isn’t foolproof, and there can be instances where the affiliate has technical difficulties with that day’s episode and would need to rely on their respective emergency policy. Each show has different “what to do in case of emergency” policies—a show like Entertainment Tonight will have an “evergreen” episode with a number of “fluff” pieces that would take a long time to actually go stale. However, what most Jeopardy! stations do is just keep the previous day’s episode as an “emergency” episode and air that in place of the day’s usual episode if there’s an issue.
So, if you’re seeing the wrong episode, know that it’s not an ideal situation, and that your local station has had technical difficulties that day and has aired its “emergency” episode instead. I’m sure they’re not exactly thrilled that it’s happened either, as upset Jeopardy! fans are not a demographic that these stations particularly enjoy receiving viewer feedback from.
And, if you stumble upon an incorrect episode a few days later on your DVR? It’s worth checking, but another possibility is that your DVR just recorded the wrong episode that day, especially in a market that airs Daytime Jeopardy (a separate syndication package with a second, rerun episode, designed to air in daytime.) The fewer reports that come in on the airdate itself, though, the higher the likelihood that your DVR messed up, though.
My friends over at Geeks Who Drink have introduced a daily trivia game—Thrice! Existing to make daily clever trivia content accessible to a wide audience, it's a daily challenge that tries to get you to the answer via three separate clues. It has a shareable score functionality to challenge your friends and new questions every day will give you a new daily social ritual. You can find it at thricegame.com.
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Minima & Maxima
What are the various minimum and maximum possible scores for the various current formats we’re seeing on Jeopardy!?
I think many people are probably most aware of the current “maximum possible total” of a game of Jeopardy! in the United States is $566,400. This is possible if all three Daily Doubles are in the top row, one player gets all 61 clues correct, bets the maximum every time (including in Final Jeopardy), and plays the Daily Double as the last clue(s) of the round.
But what about some of the other situations? What’s the minimum possible total? Or, what are the minimum and maximum for Celebrity Jeopardy! or Jeopardy! UK?
Let’s start with the maximums: Following the same algorithm—all Daily Doubles in top row, one player gets every clue correct, betting the maximum each time, including Final, and playing the Daily Double as the last clue(s) of every round, the maximum possible Celebrity Jeopardy! total would be a whopping $2,683,200. (Certainly, the six Daily Doubles add up!)
Over in the United Kingdom, with the smaller point values, three boards, and only four Daily Doubles, that makes the maximum total £151,600.
Now, what about the minimum possible totals? In order to calculate this, again, the Daily Doubles need to be in the top row. In this situation, one player would get every clue in the game incorrect and therefore lose money on each clue. That being said: the Daily Doubles could be played at any point in the round, as the bet is always going to be capped at the maximum value on the board. ($1,000 and $2,000 in regular Jeopardy!, $500, $1,000, and $1,500 in Celebrity, and £150 and £300 over in the UK.)
So, what are these minimums? In regular Jeopardy!, the lowest possible score is -$58,000. (For all of these, I’m going to leave the calculations to the reader; however, I have run each of these scenarios through the same game chart Excel spreadsheet that I use to calculate stats as each game airs). In Celebrity Jeopardy, the extra three Daily Doubles mean we have a lowest possible score of -$59,600. And, finally, in the UK, the smaller clue values and 4 Daily Doubles mean your lowest possible score is -£10,350.
It should be noted that, in all of these minimums, you have to have the first selection of the round, as otherwise, you won’t be able to gain control of the board to select the first Daily Double of the game.
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TV stations do need to fill extra time in their schedule so purchase the rights to air TV programs in those periods in their markets. However, am I correct in thinking that Jeopardy! is valuable enough for their ratings for stations to sort of compete with each other for the syndication contract for it, thus making it more important to them than just as “filler”?
This has me wondering how many clues would actually be played if a single player were buzzing in and answering incorrectly on every single clue.