What is ‘Jeopardy’ up to? Game show heads into uncharted territory for writers strike
Season 40 of “Jeopardy!” is going to shake things up because of the Writers Guild of America strike by reintroducing some old faces, it was announced on Aug. 7.
Showrunner Michael Davies explained on the podcast “Inside Jeopardy!” that not only will the game show ask former contestants back to the stage, but that they’re also throwing old questions in the new episodes.
“I believe, principally, that it would not be fair to have new contestants making their first appearance on the Alex Trebek Stage doing it with non-original material or, as we’ll talk about, a combination of non-original material and material that was written pre-strike,” Davies said. “And so we decided that really we needed to invite back and give a second chance in general to players who probably thought that their chance to come back and play on the Alex Trebek Stage had gone forever.”
Contestants from Season 37 who lost will be returning, and they will advance to a “Champions Wild Card” from that season and Season 38, Davies noted. The second-chance tournament for Season 38 has already taken place.
Davis also said that they are increasing prize amounts for second and third place by $1,000 each, a move that hasn’t been done in more than 20 years, TVLine reported. This change has to do with the criticism the show has been facing regarding runners-up funding their own way to appear on the program, Variety reported.
“This is something that we’ve been working on ever since I really took the reins of the show, something that obviously is discussed widely within our social communities and within the community of our contestants,” Davies said. “We understand that post-COVID, travel costs have increased. We understand how complicated ... funding a trip to ‘Jeopardy!’ is for many contestants within our community, and we think this is way about time that we did this.”
Season 40 of the show premieres Sept. 11.
This story was originally published August 7, 2023 at 6:30 PM with the headline "What is ‘Jeopardy’ up to? Game show heads into uncharted territory for writers strike."