![]() As the host and quiz master of Jeopardy! for 37 years, the Canadian entertainer was the perfect combination of studious, professional, and playful. I can’t even really imagine what it’s going to be like.”Īlex Trebek was about as irreplaceable as a TV personality can be. ![]() That’s one of the terrible things about it. A change made for the sake of expanding commercial appeal doesn’t have to be a concession.When Jeopardy! GOAT contestant Brad Rutter spoke to Den of Geek earlier this year, he shared his opinion that there is only one perfect Jeopardy! host to replace the departed Alex Trebek. Stopping short of altering the format for the flagship program, they’ve subtly and smoothly revamped the atmosphere while maintaining the bedrock of intellectualism. The producers of Jeopardy! understand that much of the show’s charm comes from a defiant un-hipness known to every kid whose arm was first to shoot up in class. But maybe the powers that be need to dilute the brand a little to preserve the most important part of it. ![]() Purists might cry foul at this desecration of the good Jeopardy! name, just as they’ve fretted over the producers’ planned spinoffs focusing on sports and pop culture to go with the standalone tournaments for librarians, educators, and students. Taylor Swift Fans Have Stopped Caring About Tour Spoilers. Why Do All Action Heroes Have Names That Start With the Same Letter? That Was the Worst Loss in the History of College Basketball Why a “Canceled” Country Star Has America’s No. (Incidentally, the queer and trans representation the two have brought to the hall of fame also has the happy side effect of bolstering the show’s relevance.) They might even get noticed by their faves with an the parasocial equivalent of nailing Final Jeopardy. Tournaments between top scorers are planned more frequently, with the upcoming best-of-the-best prime-time special Jeopardy! Masters inviting Mattea Roach devotees and Amy Schneider–ites to duke it out on social media. Taking another cue from the sporting world, the emphasis on personalities has grown more pronounced: The theme-song title sequence now opens with a snapshot of a past champ that presumes our familiarity with them. In his intros and chat breaks, Jennings geeks out over streaks and personal bests in the same way NBA Twitter obsesses over minutiae. He’s also a die-hard fiend for statistics, and that passion has proved instrumental in helping his employer shed its lingering identification with the retiree demographic. The show works only with a host who can sustain the audience’s belief that he’d know every factoid coming out of his mouth even without an earpiece, and Jennings has earned that trust. Most importantly, he’s a bona fide genius, enriching each match with edifying context and off-the-cuff tidbits. If the host of Jeopardy! is James Bond, and in so many ways he is, then Trebek is the buttoned-up Sean Connery to Jennings’ droll Roger Moore, always ready with a savvy wink and a delightfully corny one-liner. He runs a looser and warmer game, with a well-deployed sense of humor that skews toward the dorkily online in a tone that neither grates nor distracts. A lifetime trivia nerd long before he became the winningest player in the show’s record books, he’s adeptly attuned to the invisible demands of the gig, his every cadence and pronunciation calibrated for maximum comprehension. To put it in Sorkinese, you’re seeing Shakespeare the way it was meant to be done. Seeing Jennings on duty, it’s hard to believe anyone else was ever up for the job. ![]() Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. Things hit rock bottom when producer Mike Richards, destined to go down in history as the Liz Truss of Jeopardy!, stepped in and stepped down over the course of a single week after news of past sexual harassment lawsuits and offensive podcast remarks promptly surfaced. Mehmet Oz or Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik, succeeded only in sullying the integrity of an honorable post. Through a turbulent 2021, the series’ decision-makers tried to placate everyone and satisfied no one with a rotation of guest hosts that, in the instances of nootropic hawkers like Dr. Protective fans insisted that the show forge onward, and offered plenty of thoughts about who should be at the helm, in the form of various grassroots campaigns. The death of Alex Trebek in November 2020 threw the quiz-program institution into an existential crisis, its producers suddenly tasked with finding someone to fill the gargantuan void left by a four-decade fixture of the small screen. After all, it’s not as if we’re going to have to spend a televised half hour with the Holy Father five nights a week. To the Jeopardy! faithful, the immortal game show is as sacred as religion, and the appointment of a new host is a higher-stakes proposition than the anointment of the next pope. ![]()
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