![]() (Bialik was ultimately named as a host for Jeopardy’s prime-time tournaments, special episodes that will include a college tournament set to air next year, along with other spin-offs.) For stretches that have typically lasted two weeks, people from varied areas of the media, sports and journalism and sitcoms, have served as guest hosts-among them LeVar Burton, Aaron Rodgers, Robin Roberts, Savannah Guthrie, and Mayim Bialik. ![]() ![]() Part of that process was the one that has played out over the past several months. Sony, in its public messaging on the matter, made great fanfare of the idea that it would be using research and analytics in its effort to find Trebek’s successor. The procedure had the sheen of studiousness to it. That system took the thing that makes Jeopardy, for so many people, so important and beloved-its abiding conviction that facts are sacred-and betrayed it. The reporting was a further indictment of Richards, who apologized for his words, saying, in part, “Looking back now, there is no excuse, of course, for the comments I made on this podcast and I am deeply sorry.” But the reporting was an indictment, too, of the process that had elevated Richards above so many other potential new hosts. “Ix-nay on the ose-nay,” he quipped at one point, in response to a comment about large noses. He joked about women’s appearances, particularly their weight. The story reported on remarks Richards had made on his podcast, The Randumb Show, from 2013 to 2014-a pattern of casual comments that revealed, in turn, a pattern of casual derision of other people. Richards’s recusal follows the publication of a scathing investigation from The Ringer, which did the basic due diligence that Jeopardy itself had seemingly failed to do. The difference here is that the change was the result not of the show’s respect for facts, but of its disregard for them. The whiplash might seem to be fitting for a show that has been, over the years, so willing to reverse its own rulings. Read: Is it possible to replace Alex Trebek? He will remain as Jeopardy’s executive producer, Sony has said. Richards announced his resignation from the position. Yesterday, though, that decision was reversed. Last week, Sony Pictures Television, which produces Jeopardy, announced the conclusion of that effort: Mike Richards, the show’s executive producer, would be its new host. Over the past several months, following Trebek’s death late last year, Jeopardy has been waging a public search for the host’s successor. On Jeopardy, the old adage is lived every day: Comment is free, but facts are sacred.īut not all of the world’s facts have mattered to the show, apparently. It humbles itself, and its contestants, before their demands. The show cares, obsessively, about the facts of the world. Moments like that are part of the nerdy magic of Jeopardy-an element of why the series works, for many of its fans, not just as a quiz show but as a ritual. And then the show, its error thus corrected, would go on. In an instant, the dollar-based score on the affected contestant’s podium would change. Having consulted an atlas, an encyclopedia, or Google, they’d realized that their initial assessment of a contestant’s answer had been wrong. Every once in a while, after a commercial break on Jeopardy, Alex Trebek would make an announcement: The judges, he’d say, had done more research.
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