Matt's Musings: Wednesday, January 8

A long form treatment in a legacy magazine, the payouts in two-day finals, and SO MUCH JEOPARDY! ON WEDNESDAYS

“What Is… The Greatest Game Show of All Time?”

Yesterday, a feature length profile of Jeopardy! over the last five years was published at Rolling Stone, authored by its chief television critic, Alan Sepinwall. Overall, I thought it was an informative deep dive into the subject — and it treated the debate over the direction in which Michael Davies has taken the show superbly. It’s fair and even-handed, including both the perspectives of Davies himself and allies, and those of his critics.

One (OK, not so) quick thing before I get into the meat of my reaction. According to Sepinwall, “Jennings describes the production as ‘uniquely stable’ for Hollywood.” He mentions the tenures of editorial producers (head writers) Billy Wisse and Michele Loud, as well as those of final Clue Crew members Jimmy McGuire and Sarah Whitcomb Foss, who have transitioned to other roles (stage manager and producer, respectively). But it wasn’t lost on me that there has been significant transition on the show’s staff within the last five years also. Three long-serving members of the contestant team have departed in the last five years, as has director Clay Jacobsen. The entire clearance and licensing staff for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune was laid off (and some are suing Sony over that decision). Most notably to me, Sepinwall writes in that same paragraph: “Even the show’s lead public-relations executive is a former contestant who still takes pleasure predicting Final Jeopardy! answers in a notepad before they’re revealed to the contestants.” That’s Alison Shapiro Cooke, who played in 2013 — but according to the show’s own full credits, Cooke is no longer on the Jeopardy! staff. (I noted the absence of her name from the full credits aired during Thanksgiving week; that’s why that jumped out at me. Sepinwall visited the Alex Trebek Stage in mid-September.)

A quote from the Executive Producer

Toward the end, one thing jumped off the screen at me:

[Davies] even speaks “here and there” with Friedman, who he says has endorsed his vision. “Harry was quite vocally conservative in not expanding,” Davies says, “but he himself has said, ‘Based on where the world is now, you have to go off and do these things to keep it in the public attention.’”

I’ll repeat what I wrote on Reddit: with this quote, Sepinwall hands a sledgehammer to the pro-tournament section of the Jeopardy! fandom with which to bludgeon their opponents; to what extent will they wield it?

Something that has rattled around in my head over the last year-plus regarding the changes to the show’s calendar is that the opponents of those changes rely heavily on a counterfactual that wasn’t ever firmly established. “In plain English, Matt,” you say. Very well.

Those opponents assume that had Harry Friedman not retired in May 2020, he would have continued to structure the show as he largely had over the previous two decades. Before yesterday, that was questionable, as Friedman had rarely spoken publicly about it or anything else — but ultimately, plausibly possible. But now, with that quote, it seems most likely that even had Friedman remained as showrunner, there would have been some significant evolution of how Jeopardy! is programmed — maybe not this particular evolution, but it wouldn’t have remained “190-200 regular games per year, tournaments only during sweeps, ToC at irregular intervals with only top regular play qualifiers and tournament winners getting in.” The argument “this never would have happened if Harry Friedman were still in charge” is off the table, no longer available to tournament opponents. It makes the response that the pro-tournament folk commit the “politician’s syllogism”¹ much harder to sustain.

A valid objection can be raised to this — namely, hearsay. It’s Davies relaying what Friedman said to him, not a quotation from Friedman himself. I don’t think that rises to the level of dismissing the statement. I conclude that based in no small part on the journalist. Sepinwall is one of the foremost television critics in the media today, and he has no dog in the fight over the Jeopardy! calendar and the expanded postseason.

A quote from the host

Somehow, Jeopardy! has remained politically neutral over the years, even though its very existence now feels political.

“Jeopardy! is a weirdly unifying thing,” says Jennings, with “young people, old people, red states, blue states — it’s an institution that has this universal acceptance. Whatever the forces of anti-science and fake news and whatever are, they seem to have some carve-out for Jeopardy!. Maybe because it’s a game?…”

I think this is a very appropriate stance for the show to take. Viewers are viewers, no matter who they are or what they believe. The show should always have as a goal the maintenance of this neutrality — and should resist pressure, from wherever applied, to steer away from it.

”Guaranteed minimums”

Over the weekend, r/Jeopardy had a post titled “Guaranteed Minimums.” It asked: “Now that the system changed the winning conditions, should the guaranteed minimum be retained?”

To me, the answer is clearly “yes.” For one thing, the reason they’ve been in place since the 1986 ToC remains applicable — players reaching the final should not receive less money than eliminated semifinalists. And for two, the possibility of surrendering actual American dollars should not be a consideration in strategy throughout the two-game final. Giving the losing finalists only their two-day score could introduce that concern, especially in Final Jeopardy.

I initially read this post another way, and it’s a question I’ll address here — in two-day total-point finals, should the show resume paying finalists their scores if they exceed the guaranteed minimum, as was the case through Season 38? And here, I have to say “no.”

In this year’s Second Chance competition, the winner receives $35,000, and the two runners-up $15,000 each. In the previous two seasons, those amounts were $35K/$20K/$10K. Regardless, a fixed prize budget of $65,000 for the final. In the four Winter 2024 Second Chance events last season, had those amounts been guaranteed minimums, the overages would’ve been, respectively: $57,800; $54,000; $16,400; and $21,277. Eight of the twelve finalists had two-day totals exceeding the amount they earned for the place in which they finished.

At least in Second Chance, reinstating guaranteed minimums would inject not only uncertainty, but significant additional expense to Jeopardy!. And as the Sepinwall article² pointed out, Jeopardy! isn’t nearly as siloed off as it has been in the past — such unexpected payouts would get the attention of the bean counters in Sony’s corporate accounting division.

But what about Champions Wildcard, and its higher fixed payouts? Well, there’s less risk here, as it’s less likely they’ll be reached. In fact, under the $100K/$50K/$25K final structure long used in tournaments, they’ve rarely been hit. But that’s just the thing. Paying out above the minimums in Champions Wildcard, but not in Second Chance, would be transparently seen as trying to nod to tradition while protecting the bottom line. It’s not a step worth taking.

Overload

Today is a busy day for those of us heavily invested in the answers and questions. We’ve got three hours of fresh new Jeopardy! content today — the usual syndicated episode, three new Pop Culture Jeopardy! knockout round games, and the hour-long premiere episode of Season 3 of Celebrity Jeopardy!. This will be the case on Wednesdays throughout the whole of January and February.

It feels to me like the result of decisions made independently by Jeopardy!’s two main media partners, Prime Video and ABC. Each made the decision they thought best for their own platforms, but it results in a lot to handle. I’d prefer it if the release of new Jeopardy content were more spread out… but at the end of the day, it is what it is.

And what it is, is: a lot. But at least for me, not too much. All Jeopardy! is good Jeopardy!, and I look forward to all 335 clues we’ll get to see tomorrow.

1. The “politician’s syllogism” is the following argumentative fallacy: “Something must be done; this is something; therefore, this must be done.” It’s a fallacy because it assumes “something must be done” is self-evidently true.

2. Down here, tucking it away a little bit: link to an un-paywalled version.