Welcome to my most recent set of editorial thoughts!
Celebrity Jeopardy! Is Getting A Season 3
Deadline announced on Friday afternoon that ABC has renewed Celebrity Jeopardy for a third season; this is not a surprise here, as the show has been reasonably successful for The Mouse in the fall and January the last two seasons.
Host information, participating players, and whether the show will use its Season 1 or Season 2 writers has not yet been confirmed.
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.
Are you looking for information on how to stream Jeopardy! in 2024? Find out information here on how to stream from most places in North America!
Do you appreciate the work I do here on The Jeopardy! Fan? Would you like to make a one-time contribution to the site? You may do so here!
You can find game-by-game stats here at The Jeopardy! Fan of all 17 players, now including Adriana Harmeyer, that have won 10 or more games on Jeopardy!
You can now listen to Alex Trebek-hosted Jeopardy! episodes from TuneIn Radio without leaving The Jeopardy! Fan — listen now!
My Thoughts On The 2025 Postseason
This was originally going to be a longer, stand-alone article, but Michael Davies’s comments on Inside Jeopardy! this week outlined enough similar concerns that I think it’s now more appropriate for me to give my thoughts in the editorial section instead.
Basically, the major issue is that there isn’t enough time in the Jeopardy! calendar to bring back all of the non-Tournament of Champions players for an airdate on syndicated Jeopardy, in addition to being able to fit in Second Chance, a Tournament of Champions, and a Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament.
Personally, I think there are two solutions to this, each of which I think are equally viable and good:
- Put the Champions Wildcard preliminary rounds on an audio-only solution, like TuneIn.
- Put the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament on a streaming service.
Basically, with the 160-odd regular-play games that the 32nd Tournament of Champions cycle is going to be seeing, historically, you would see about 80 champions overall, split into 40 1-time champs, 20 2-time champs, 10 3-time champs, 5 4-time champs, 3 5-time champs, and 2 6+-time champs.
The advantage to putting Champions Wildcard preliminaries on an audio service is that the show already has an audio partner in TuneIn. There are other potential partners as well if TuneIn isn’t interested.
The advantage to putting JIT onto a streaming service is that it’s a standalone tournament featuring marketable players that can be more accessible to everyone, and it shields the show slightly from criticism that it is taking regular play slots away from “civilians” in favor of returning past players again.
Whatever route the show chooses to take, I think it is crucial that every player who wins a game gets the opportunity to return, as this promotes playing to win (as opposed to potentially “settling” for a Second Chance invite instead).
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:
r/Jeopardy Is A Cancer Upon The Fandom. It Needs Chemotherapy.
Over the past few months, r/Jeopardy has turned into a place where one could generally find reasonable discourse about the show into an echo chamber where if you do not completely fit the “groupthink” of “tournaments are terrible,” you are deemed to be unwelcome. Moreover, it definitely seems as though most of the “opinions” are coming from a very small percentage of people—I would say, maybe 100 people—whose opinions are being amplified by tabloids. (In fact, The Sun one day quoted the same user six times and implied these opinions came from six different Reddit users.)
I have said this before, but I firmly believe that many of these complaints are rooted in a collective disappointment of unrealized contestant dreams—and the corresponding lessened ability to cheer for people “like them” on the show. (And yes, “like them” is deliberate: a distinct negative about the show being followed by people throughout the United States is that there is a very distinct patch of white supremacy within the show’s fandom, many of whom see the current contestant group makeup as a personal affront to them.)
This sort of behavior is encouraged by the moderators of the subreddit, who yesterday, went as far to post misleading statistics surrounding overall viewership of Jeopardy! Masters in an attempt to convince people that the show should change course—posting viewing numbers that completely failed into account the general cord-cutting that takes place year-over-year and the very likely increase in viewership on Hulu.
r/Jeopardy has become the worst part of being a Jeopardy! fan and it is my belief that every single subreddit moderator needs to resign and hand over the subreddit to fans who will be more positive regarding the show. Or, if not, the show needs to start completely ignoring the subreddit, because r/Jeopardy—or any discussion forum, for that matter—no longer has the best interests of the show at heart.
Masters Breakdown #4: Coming Tomorrow
Masters Breakdown #4 will be published tomorrow, as I need the rest of the day off. Thank you for your understanding.
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Moderators have personally attacked Andy on the Jeopardy subreddit, doubled down when pressed on it, and allowed it to happen. The funny thing is, Andy is far, far closer to anyone in the Jeopardy community than they are.
I’ve never understood the hatred out there for r/jeopardy, honestly. With the exception of a few toxic personalities who popped up around the time the writers’ strike started (most of whom were not regulars), I’ve had nothing but positive experiences there. Lots of great debates/discussions, and the forum has really enhanced my experience as a fan over the last half decade.
My opinions about the recent season align more with yours than with the blindly anti-tournament crowd, and I definitely go against the grain in some posts with my commentary, but I find as long as my comments are respectful and thoughtful, they are basically always upvoted, which is more than I can say about most online forums these days. And the mods generally strike a good balance of removing hateful trash while preserving legitimate debate/discussion.
I have it up there with this website in terms of my go to daily sources for thoughtful commentary/discussion.
Some people just cannot accept that not everyone who tries out will be on the show… More people should be like Andy, very humble and straightforward. I believe that if it’s meant to be that one is on Jeopardy, it’s meant to be at the time it’s meant to be at (persistence is usually rewarded by producers!) And if it’s not meant to be, that shouldn’t be the end all be all to a fulfilled life.
I think adding more play-in games and putting them on radio (or maybe even YouTube) is a great idea. Personally, I really enjoyed listening to the play-in games this season and would happily seek them out if they did more of them. Plus, it has the twin advantages of fairness (including all eligible players in a shorter time frame) and potentially increasing the field of invitees for tournaments like SCC and JIT. However, if play-in games continue, I hope the producers decide to put up box scores for those games–I do find the buzzer data instructive.
There are still people on the Jeopardy SubReddit complaining about the lack of regular episodes, even though they have been going on for weeks now. The spread of “tournaments bad” has gotten out of control. Cancer is the right word.
With The Chase in limbo, Jeopardy might be the only pure quiz show that still invites non-celebrities based on trivia competency and stage presence rather than sob stories and social games.
But disgruntled hopefuls would rather burn Jeopardy to the ground than see someone else get a Second Chance.
Long time lurker on the subreddit–I think I’ve commented like once, to congratulate Amy on the 2nd or 3rd win of her streak, as I was a big fan of her Downton Abbey podcast LONG before she hit the J! scene. I’ve been frustrated but not surprised by the recent vibe shift in the subreddit–I also found the tournament-a-thon a bit much, but also knew that situation was a factor of the strike as much as the new vision.
The fact that media outlets know J! drama is always good for clicks says all we need to know about the strength of the brand, and the fandom toxicity has been an issue in some ways since Alex passed. It first landed on Mayim, and once she was gone, it simply shifted to the next target. All fandoms seem to have nasty undercurrents like this, we just have to hope the decision-makers have the objectivity needed to take what is useful feedback and discard the rest.
Great post, especially “that media outlets know J! drama is always good for clicks says all we need to know about the strength of the brand”, which has been my thinking, too.
I was amused by Andy’s title today because I felt it read sort of like casting a curse (like “a pox upon thee”) rather than a diagnosis (as it turned out to be).
r/Jeopardy is over-moderated to the point of infantilization, particularly ReganLynch (the only mod I have a gripe with), who’s “fighting for those who can’t fight” approach to defending contestants could not be more off the mark. I’ve had my words parsed and twisted more than once, in addition to telling me to “back off” for suggesting be allowed speak candidly within fair terms, then deleting a comment for “not being excellent” is beyond cringe. Moderate when necessary, not because we have to be nothing but “excellent.”
But let’s not just blame the mods: Redditors need to stop downvoting any comment just because they dislike it. Stop calling any negative opinion a complaint. They’re a part of r/Jeopardy’s toxicity too.
To all – a bunch of years ago I made a decision to not engage on any social media platforms.
I find this truly AMAZING site to be sufficient for my increasing interest in all things Jeopardy!
Is it possible that some people’s enjoyment of Jeopardy! would increase if they didn’t participate – especially on reddit?
I did not think you were clear whether you “quit” social media or never joined, so I do not know if I am exactly like you or just similar — I chose to NEVER JOIN.
I totally agree with your second statement — except that I would call my interest in Jeopardy! long-standing rather than increasing.
I assume in your third statement you were implying “if they didn’t participate on social media”. I think that is probably true (especially as you say, SOME people), but I believe a lot of people just like to be contrarian and ENJOY anywhere they can find to be so, especially where their statements are only expected to be OPINIONS [it’s a TV game show, not life or death or eternal salvation] and can be disagreed with, but cannot be dismissed as non-factual, non-scientific, ignorant, etc. [though my understanding is that some of the comments get into (is, isn’t, should be or shouldn’t be) WOKE or not WOKE 🙄].
Lisa!
I chose not to join for two main reasons: was a college professor and primary caregiver for my late Beloved wife Susan.
I did mean not participate in social medis.