Jeopardy!’s showrunner, Michael Davies, revealed that the sport present will transfer ahead with season 40 by reusing outdated questions and former contestants amid the continued writers’ strike.
“I consider, principally, that it will not be truthful to have new contestants making their first look on the Alex Trebek Stage, doing it with non-original materials, or as we’ll speak about a mixture of non-original materials and materials that was written pre-strike,” mentioned Davies on the Monday, August 7, episode of his “Inside Jeopardy!” podcast. “And so we determined that actually we wanted to ask again and provides a second likelihood typically to gamers who most likely thought that their likelihood to come back again and play on the Alex Trebek Stage had gone eternally.”
Davies went on to elucidate that the present would use “a mixture of fabric” that Jeopardy!’s WGA writers created earlier than the strike occurred and blend in with questions from “a number of seasons of the present.”
Earlier than the Author’s Guild of America strike began in Might, the present initially deliberate on doing its annual “Match of Champions.” Nonetheless, a number of contributors — together with 13-time winner Ray LaLonde — introduced they might not take part to face in solidarity with the writers guild.
“I’m a lifelong devoted fan of Jeopardy!. I’m and can at all times be glad about the expertise I had on the present and the chance to take part within the [‘Tournament of Champions’] is past a dream come true for me,” LaLonde wrote through Reddit in July. “As a supporter of the commerce union motion, a union member’s son and a proud union member myself, I’ve knowledgeable the present’s producers that if the strike stays unresolved I cannot cross a picket line to play within the match of champions.”
As no progress has been made on the strike standing, the crew at Jeopardy! has determined to pause the plan for the match in the interim. As a substitute, season 40 will kick off with a “second likelihood match” for shedding contestants from season 37. The winners from that collection will transfer ahead to a “Champions Wild Card.”
Davies revealed that the “Match of Champions” will return as soon as the strike ends.
Along with the brand new protocols for the upcoming season, Davies additionally introduced that the sport present’s prize fund for the runner-ups may also improve by $1,000 every for the primary time in twenty years.
“The third place prize will transfer as much as $2,000. The second place prize will transfer as much as $3,000,” he acknowledged whereas noting the thought has been mentioned by followers and contestants. “That is one thing that we’ve been engaged on ever since I actually took the reins of the present.”
