Welcome to another Saturday editorial column here at The Jeopardy! Fan.
Before I start today’s editorial, I want to say that these editorial columns are never intended to tell you what to think, but they are my opinion on the state of things in the fandom, written in order to provide extra information and potentially necessary context for understanding matters.
Monica Thieu’s Study Has Been Published
This week, Monica Thieu—a former College Championship winner who viewers saw as part of the All-Star Games in 2019—published the results of her study that can possibly explain how a person’s memory works. (And, let me tell you—her findings certainly explain my memory to a T!)
In the article, published in Psychonomic Bulletn & Review and titled Episodic-semantic linkage for $1000: New semantic knowledge is more strongly coupled with episodic memory in trivia experts, trivia experts were more likely to remember facts when they could also recall the context where they first learned them. (My own experience matches these findings: the number of times I have later recalled the answer to a trivia question because it came up as a crucial Final Jeopardy, or as an important question in another match I’ve been involved in—has been happening for nearly two decades for me.)
If You’re Not Watching These Games, I Think You’re Missing Out
Tuesday’s game, where both Long Nguyen and Kat Jepson cleared the $25,000 mark going into Final Jeopardy, made me think: viewers who are somehow upset at the increase in tournament play in Season 40 are missing out on some of the best and most exciting games ever if they’re choosing not to watch.
Certainly, I have been on the edge of my seat with a large number of these games. I can’t imagine missing them. If you’re a viewer who prefers games where the contestants struggle to break $10,000, I don’t know what to tell you. The games we’re seeing—especially one like Tuesday’s—are demonstrably better and more exciting.
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.
Are you going on the show and looking for information about how to bet in Final Jeopardy? Check out my Betting Strategy 101 page. If you want to learn how to bet in two-day finals, check out Betting Strategy 102. In case the show uses a tournament with wild cards in the future, there is also a strategy page for betting in tournament quarterfinals.
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Why I Think Some People Are Feeling The Way They Are
There has to be some reason, though, why a subset of the fanbase feels the way it does about the current situation. And the next section of this editorial is going to be something that I think will be seen as controversial, because I believe it to be an uncomfortable truth, but I also think it needs to be said in order to get a full understanding of the situation.
Many of you who read this are not going to be a part of this group. However: there is a subset of Jeopardy! fans who watch this show religiously because they, over the last 30-40 years, have harbored unrealized dreams of being able to be a contestant on the show themselves and now live vicariously through people “like them” (quotes included deliberately) who do get the opportunity to go on. And these fans see the reduction of regular play as a reminder of their own unrealized dreams and are finding ways to lash out online because of this realization.
Even If There Is “Tourney Fatigue”, I Don’t Think It Ultimately Matters
So, yes, there is “tournament fatigue” amongst some people in the fanbase who gain enjoyment out of living vicariously through others. But, in 2024, I don’t think that matters whatsoever.
Fans can scream until they’re blue in the face and writers can put their think pieces out there in search of their clicks and ad dollars decrying the situation, but one thing is clear: Hollywood is in an era of cost-cutting and tax savings. The hullabaloo over Coyote vs. Acme is very prominent proof of that. More tournaments give the show more cost certainty and make the number crunchers happy. And, in the long run, if the number crunchers are happy, the chances are higher that we’re going to see more Jeopardy! overall. (After all, if Coyote vs. Acme, a film that most people who’ve seen it think is great, can get shelved on the whims of David Zaslav, what’s to say that the same can’t happen to Jeopardy! on the whim of a similar executive over at Sony?)
It should also be noted that in the announcement this week of Suzanne Prete’s promotion to President of Game Shows at Sony Pictures Television, that Sony has clearly looked at what has been going on with Jeopardy! as of late and is happy, as people involved are receiving promotions and not firings, with Ravi Ahuja even saying “our Game Show division has excelled beyond even our lofty expectations.”
As I’ve said many times in this column, the Jeopardy! of your parents’ era is long gone. With linear broadcast television jettisoning viewers year over year, and the only thing propping up broadcast television in the United States (the National Football League) pivoting slowly over to streaming itself, Jeopardy! needs to move away from its past in order to survive into the future. Yes, that means you’re going to see fewer new players every year. But, if it means the show gets to survive an extra 5-10 years because of these changes, you’re going to get to see more new players overall, compared to if the show had chosen to stay its previous course.
To the production staff over in Culver City: while listening to the fans is nice, making the people who cut your paychecks happy is just as important.
And to the fans: the amount of toxicity and anger you’re spouting online over this isn’t healthy. Step back. Enjoy life. And embrace change—even though I know that change is a difficult thing to grasp for many in this fanbase. (And it’s this paragraph here where I’m sure some of you will take to your keyboards and talk about how tone-deaf I am.)
We have many new offerings at The Jeopardy! Fan Online Store! Here are our current featured items, including our new Masters Season 3 Player List T-shirt:
In Closing, Wise Words From Bill MacDonald Back In 2006
Being that we’re going into the ToC this week—remember the quote from Bill MacDonald and his own Tournament of Champions quarterfinal in 2006: “Even bad Jeopardy! is better than no Jeopardy!” (Even if you and I may disagree as to what constitutes “bad Jeopardy!.”)
(And, to the show’s social media team: That full interview—it’s from Episode #5000—would be a great interview to highlight as a YouTube short. Nudge nudge, wink wink.)
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I definitely don’t have Tournament fatigue and am very much looking forward to the conclusion of this Champions Wildcard and then the ToC. That being said, I do look forward to seeing the return of Lucas Partridge and seeing how far he can push his winning streak (if at all). I look forward to seeing new “stars” being made after the ToC for the rest of Season 40.
Just my opinion here, but I have a hunch that we’ll see Season 41 start with regular play as well, as I don’t see there being enough “Champions” for a ToC to start Season 41. What do you think about the start of Season 41 Andy?
Just curious, can someone explain why Hollywood is in the era of cost cutting and stuff, don’t fully understand? Why is television moving the way it is? Have nothing against tournament play or anything but just wondering about it.
Because capitalism.
One of the best explanations that I’ve heard was from an interview with Mike Schur (creator of “The Good Place” and “Parks and Rec”, and a union leader for the WGA).
In effect: the pressure to maximize shareholder value over the short term has lead to the conclusion among business leaders that it is better to take a successful product and cut costs everywhere, because it will take a while for the consumer to realize how much worse it has become. This will ruin the company’s reputation over the long term and crater long-term profits, but In the interim, people will continue buying it for the same price and shareholders get to pocket the difference (c.f. Boeing, Sports Illustrated, et al.).
I would recommend listening to the whole interview, he is very insightful (and charming). https://defector.com/my-fabulous-vacation-home-on-naboo-with-michael-schur
Also, (and I think this is even beyond the definition of capitalism) over the last 30 or so years “making money” (even “making LOTS of money”) has become insufficient to corporate America and now they think they MUST make “MORE money” each year than they did the year before.
FYI: I began keying my comment before Sam had posted his so I only saw his afterward. I believe his “the pressure to maximize shareholder value over the short term” is either the cause of or the result of what I said — it is almost a “chicken or egg” situation — but I think the most underlying reason for it all is greed and insecurity. [By “insecurity”, I don’t mean like food insecurity or housing insecurity, I mean corporate officers feeling insecure as to whether they will be able to keep their jobs if they can’t keep INFLATING the corporate earnings.]
One question I do want to ask: do you think that Final Jeopardy rounds that have no impact on the outcome or anybody’s take-home total, and where multiple players may not even attempt the clue (and in the case of two recent games, where nobody wagered anything), make for good television? To me, this seems anticlimactic, especially with a commercial break before.
(I imagine you are asking Andy, but I thought I’d put in my two cents.)
In all situations the three players are playing FJ to try to have the best chance of being the winner over the other two, whether that is to take home money or just to move up to another game in a tournament. Their bet (even if $0) is calculated as to whether they think they are apt to knew a clue in the given category, what they think the others will bet, and maybe their opinion of how likely each of the other two are to know a clue in the given category.
Some final scores in Double Jeopardy will have led to more climactic FJ rounds than others, but until the responses and wagers are revealed, it is still somewhat climactic even when the final final results are almost a given (even when no one receives the results in cash). [Plus the suspense as to whether you yourself got FJ right and you can have even guessed how much they will have wagered and find out if you were right about that!]
Presumably viewers care about the players and unlike watching WATSON play, they emphasize with how each might feel about the final results. After all, in each game, regardless of all the stats and who did or did not get money, one of the players “got the gold”, one “got silver” and the third “got bronze” and if a viewer felt the excitement of that game had worn off before Final Jeopardy, they can switch to watching something else or “go get a beer”. But if they cared enough to watch that episode, I doubt there is much chance of them not tuning in to the next one which will have different contestants and different outcomes — and people don’t tune in to the next episode of NOT “good television”.
Sorry, I meant “empathize”, not “emphasize” 😊.
I agree that it is anticlimactic, but the possibility of having the game locked up before the final bell is going to exist in any non-scripted competition. When it is locked up like that it adds to the general “narrative” of the game, showing that the leader was so dominant that final wasn’t even necessary (kind of like not having to play the bottom of the ninth).
Thankfully in the regular season there can still be something at stake, either the competition for second or the leader wagering to add to their take-home.
Strangely enough, this is perhaps an argument in favour of wildcards: any 2nd or 3rd place player still has a shot if they wager and get it right.
I’m not sure this is true, but I believe the ratings for James Holzhauer’s games were pretty good and weren’t most of his games runaways?