Next Saturday, NBC will re-air an episode of The Wall where Jordan and Maurcus went home empty handed. Two days later, on August 8, Let’s Make a Deal will re-air their Big Deal skunked week from the week of January 3 of this year.
Month: July 2022
Jeopardy! BEST/WORST Moments of Season 38
Here’s the highlights (& lowlights) of this historic season (feel free to add suggestions and report any uncaught typos/goofs):
BEST
-Just like on WHEEL, we had a new music package (incl. re-orchestrated versions of cues from the prev. package though “Thinking Time” was unchanged).
-The Jeopardy! stage at SONY Pictures Studios was renamed “The Alex Trebek Stage” w/ a new background graphic.
-Three instances of tiebreakers this season (one during Game 3 of the Semifinals of the National College Championship).
-Much more long-term champions this season compared to especially last season.
-Two true clean sweeps on Daily Doubles where contestants wagered everything (or wagered the max available in the given round) on all three DD clues and were correct on all of them.
-Two instances of a champion’s first two wins having the same exact score going into FJ!.
-Early season-bests in weekly winnings, combined Coryat, Lach trash (triple stumpers) and more set during the first three weeks of the season which of course proved to be anomalies, showing the prowess of Matt Amodio.
-After the previous week’s miss we scored a PERFECT DD WEEK on the wk. of 10/4 with that Friday’s episode featuring a SEASON-BEST COMBINED CORYAT SCORE of $51,200!!! Would’ve had a clean-sweep there too if Max Godnick hadn’t come up w/ the twisted incorrect response of painting & stitching a horse into a zebra, but we did have one on that Tuesday.
-Matt Amodio’s run from late last season carrying well into October finally concluding his 38-day $1,518,601 run (becoming the show’s FOURTH-EVER MILLIONAIRE including a non-Holzhauer record for highest single-day score of $83K set on 10/4; This run was the second-longest of all time until it was surpassed by Amy Schneider w/ 40 a little later into the season) on the 11th, being unseated by Jonathan Fisher who would go on to become an ultra-champ himself on an 11-day $246,100 run, the best run ever by a “giant-slayer” (and first to pull such a feat), overshadowing Buzzy Cohen. Oh, and by the way, Matt’s demise was not spoiled in advance by the media like w/ Ken Jennings or James Holzhauer, which was very surprising.
-Kate Kohn finally got on the show in November after two delays forced her to wait.
-Andrew He, Amy Schneider’s immediate predecessor, set a record for highest first-day score w/ $52,001 on 11/10, and their combined efforts resulted in the first-ever instance of two consecutive champions winning $100K throughout their first three games.
-We had the first-ever Jeopardy! Professor’s Tournament run 12/6 through 12/17.
-Cory Anotado, the founder of BuzzerBlog (formerly gameshownews.net), got on the show January 13th during Amy Schneider’s reign.
-Amy Schneider made all kinds of history during her run on the show — The show’s FIFTH MILLIONAIRE AND FIRST WOMAN MILLIONAIRE, first openly-transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions and taking it all the way to 40 days w/ $1,382,800 along w/ many other records!!!
-From 1/17 to 1/28, the Jeopardy! Explore Alaska Sweepstakes was held. To enter the JEOPARDY! Explore Alaska Sweepstakes, viewers were invited to tune-in to JEOPARDY! every weekday and enter the daily Final Jeopardy! category on the sweepstakes entry webpage, sweepstakes.jeopardy.com. Then, they would be entered for a chance to win an expedition for two exploring authentic Alaskan coastal wilderness from the unique vantage of a small ship. Each winner and their guest would receive round-trip coach-class air transportation from the winner’s closest major gateway airport, $1,000 US spending cash, as well as all shipboard accommodations, meals (excluding alcoholic beverages), and activities for travel valid in 2022 or 2023.
-A fun fact about the 1/25 episode: There was a “SEE LIFE” category in the J! Round, a “”C” LIFE” category in the DJ! Round & “SEA LIFE” was the category for FJ!.
-The Jeopardy! National College Championship hosted by Mayim Bialik went underway Tuesday, February 8th primetime (8pm-9pm ET) and ran Tuesdays through Fridays until February 22nd. There were two games per episode.
-The Finals (especially Game 2 of it) of the NCC was a happy ending to a sad story as Game 2 was a tremendous improvement in gameplay quality (which is to be expected, especially given the quality of the Quarterfinals) and enjoyment (not to say Game 1 wasn’t enjoyable too despite the lackluster Coryat scores in that game).
-Amy Schneider had gotten engaged to girlfriend Genevieve Davis announced via an Instagram post towards the end of February.
-Being a breast cancer survivor, Christine Whelchel ditched her wig on the 2/28 episode in a move to normalize cancer recovery.
-Starting on 3/21 and taking inspiration from the NCC, previews of the next day’s contestants were shown at the end of each episode.
-The unaired 1964 pilot of the show was livestreamed on YouTube as part of the show’s 58th birthday.
-Mattea Roach put together another historic run this season w/ a 23-day total of $560,983, becoming the winningest Canadian in the show’s history, youngest ultra-champion at 23 and another LGBTQ+ representative for the ToC along w/ other records! Although it was kind of easy to predict when her run would end based on declining performance and fatigue in the last days.
-Ryan Long’s rollercoaster 16-day $299,400 run.
-Leigh Jahnig and Robert Won were some of the most competitive pair of challengers we had seen in quite some time. In their encounter on 7/8, they had a tight match going between them w/ Robert going into FJ! w/ $23,700 and Leigh w/ exactly $16K and no incorrect responses between them. They both came up w/ the correct FJ! response and Robert emerged as the winner BY $1 over Leigh w/ a score of $32,001 while outgoing champion Brian Ahern busted out w/ the sole incorrect FJ! response (his fourth overall incorrect response in the entire episode, in fact) even though he had virtually no chance of winning anyway. Sadly, Robert was O&D’d out the next episode.
-Even though the game itself was terrible no thanks to a category relating to Herman Wouk tripping up the panel resulting in an awful J! round, we had our first clean sweep in DDs and FJ! on 7/18 since 3/24, and as it turned out, we were $1 AWAY from having a TRIPLE TIEBREAKER.
WORST
-Mike Richards was fired as EP of this show and WHEEL in the wake of sexist scandals.
-Announcement of Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings becoming permanent hosts for next season not being announced until the final days of this season.
-Fans unfairly judging and even flat out ABUSING Mayim Bialik on social media.
-Only five DD and FJ! clean sweeps vs. 11 last season.
-Quite a few instances where clues that shouldn’t have been triple stumpers were triple stumpers.
-“Countries of Africa” and “Historic Geography” were the categories of the two toughest FJ! clues of the season (possibly all-time).
-Two instances of going an entire month without a FJ! sweep (December and May, the latter of which took place during the longest FJ! sweep drought in the show’s history which lasted 59 episodes).
-Matt Amodio has been known to set many records on this show, but on 9/21, he set a wrong kind of record for largest-known dollar amount lost in a Daily Double wager since October 2004 ($15K).
-Just like at some points late last season there was another instance of Matt Amodio crossing out a correct response on 9/23 which cost us a clean sweep on this episode.
-Fans bullying Matt Amodio and making unwanted remarks about how he pronounces his answers (“What’s [response]?”) which was deemed perfectly acceptable EVEN BEFORE Alex Trebek’s passing as well as calling his opponents “subpar”, some of which had stats worthy of an average champion trapped in a buzzsaw.
-One missed Daily Double on 10/1 ended up denying a perfect DD week on the wk. of 9/27.
-Shoddy gameplay and lack of strategy from the women challenging Jonathan Fisher on 10/19 led to an all-around disappointing episode.
-Erin Coningsby’s overly-conservative playing on the 10/21 ultimately proved to be costly for her.
-At the end of Jonathan Fisher’s run, we were SKUNKED on Daily Doubles in back-to-back episodes (10/25-10/26; first two times this season) for the first time since December 23-24, 2019. Oh, and by the way, the end of Fisher’s run signaled the end of a 9-week streak of weekly champion sweep alerts that dated back to late last season.
-After unseating Jonathan Fisher, Nancy Donehower was one-and-done just like the Nancy that dethroned Ken Jennings all the way back in 2004, ending the streak of 2+-time champions. Not to mention the following week started off on a bad note w/ a Daily Double SKUNKING for the second week in a row, and it was a losing week for returning champions for the first time this season starting 2-0 then finishing 2-3.
-Matt King joined unwanted company on 11/23 tied third w/ Christy Gibson (-$6,400 in 2012) for lowest score in the show’s history, and that was the second consecutive episode where a player missed out on participating in FJ!.
-Ugly second game of the Semifinals round of the Professor’s Tournament and lackluster second week.
-Promising J! Round on the Christmas Eve episode but then the episode took a sharp downturn afterwards.
-Some stations hinted at Amy Schneider’s demise by airing the promo for the episode *multiple times* throughout the day (along w/ her appearance in talk shows). Also, Washington Post and the New York Times got themselves in a TON of hot water w/ J! fans as they SPOILED HER LOSS via PUSH NOTIFICATIONS!!
-Rhone Talsma, another giant-killer who’s a Chicago librarian just like Emma Boetcher, pulled a Nancy Zerg becoming one-and-done one day after dethroning Amy Schneider by BUSTING OUT in FJ!. Safe to say this week took a deep nosedive after that.
-Ben Sloat wagering nothing in FJ! on the Groundhog’s Day episode costing him the win.
-The Quarterfinals round of the National College Championship was nothing but a FLUNK-FEST especially during the second week (and especially in the last three games) — While Anna Muthalaly, a junior at Duke University from Game 10, played sloppily and deservingly flunked-out from participating in FJ!, the behavior by some fans towards her because of her posture was TOTALLY unacceptable. 
Dave Rapp who was the reigning champ at the time on the regular series had been doing the same thing but hadn’t gotten a single word for it. That was and STILL IS SEXIST and RACIST and gives the rest of us a bad name. Meanwhile, the last pair of quaterfinal games were DEFINITELY the worst of them all where Game 11 fell apart right at the end of the J! Round where we had a SEASON-WORST 19 TRIPLE STUMPERS (later tied on 3/11) and then of course FJ! was a triple stumper. Well, speaking of worst, the final game of this round WAS THE WORST OF ‘EM ALL! SEASON-LOW (to date) combined Coryat score of $18,600, a SEASON-WORST OF $21,200 CORYAT LOST TO INCORRECT RESPONSES along w/ our eighth overall DD SKUNKING this season, and the winner of this game, Megan Sullivan, advanced to the semifinals w/ a score of a dismal 8,401. Game 12 of the Quarters broke me in a way none of the others could in this PAINFUL round of games.
-Disaster episode on 2/24 where we had our sixth regular-play DD SKUNKING this season and ninth overall and we barely escaped from having a total washout w/ only one correct FJ! answer, and don’t forget about a dreadful $17,400 of Lach trash from 17 triple stumpers.
-The week of March 7 was truly one of the MOST PAINFUL weeks of Jeopardy! I have ever covered in my four years of blogging about game shows.
It never started on the right foot as on Monday, Clay Cooper was knocked out of FJ! eligibility w/ a negative -$2,400 score, a regular-play-worst $18,200 Coryat lost to incorrect responses, the multi-part FJ! was a triple stumper and Maureen O’Neil won with a lousy $2,200 (season-low winning-score to date).
Tuesday didn’t really fare any better as we had our seventh regular-play DD SKUNKING and tenth overall this season.
Wednesday, SEASON-WORST in Correct/Incorrect responses and a NEW SEASON-WORST LACH TRASH of a whopping $20,400 from 16 triple stumpers.
Although Thursday (aka Mario Day) was the only decent day out of this week for this show, that really didn’t help soothe the pain of this week, and it didn’t help that Maureen’s FJ! wagers that week were overly-aggressive, but she only made it that far w/ a shot at sweeping the week because she was lucky and her opponents weren’t that strong.
Moment of truth for Maureen came Friday….ABSOLUTELY NOT BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T EVEN GET A CHANCE TO DEFEND HER TITLE AS SHE WAS SENT HOME BEFORE FJ! w/ a score of -$2,600. Just brace yourselves….. there was also ANOTHER SEASON-WORST FOR CORRECT/INCORRECT RESPONSES RESULTING IN A SEASON-WORST FOR THAT CATEGORY WEELKY FOR THIS WEEK, SEASON-WORST COMBINED CORYAT OF $15,400 WHICH RESULTED IN A DESERVING SEASON-LOW IN THE WEEKLY CORYAT ($129,200), ANOTHER SEASON-WORST LACH TRASH OF A PITIFUL $22,600 AND MATCHING THE LOW-MARK OF 19 TS’s (also triggered a SEASON-WORST here too in the weekly stats until Week 35), and then another $14,600 lost to incorrect responses securing a SEASON-WORST FOR CORYAT LOST TO INCORRECT RESPONSES IN A WEEK. Didn’t help that new champion Matt Glassman finished w/ a dismal $8,900, making this week THE WORST for weekly winnings until it was surpassed in Week 41 (Week 42 was not too far behind passing this mark too). I almost thought of going on vacation after that wreck, but I just soldiered on.
-Lach trash of an unlucky $16,600 from 18 triple stumpers on the St. Patty’s Day episode, but the FJ! wagers were strategically good.
-We may have had a clean sweep on DDs and FJ! on 3/24, but on the week of 3/21, we were SKUNKED on returning champions for the first and only time this season, not to mention 3/25 containing an instance of an easy FJ! clue ending up as a triple stumper. Didn’t help that Jackie Kelly came out of that w/ a dismal $7,500.
-Here is the FJ! clue under the category “Singers” in the opening episode of the skunked week of 3/21: “In 2021 at 95 this singer achieved a Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material.” Well, both Karen Johnson and outgoing champion Finn Corrigan caused social media to GO MAD by responding w/ “Who is Diana Ross?” while new champion Margaret Chipowsky had the correct response of “Who is Tony Bennett?”. Karen and Finn took to Twitter to apologize to Diana Ross for this incident.
-We had a single-player FJ! on 4/20 (first time since 10/13/2020) w/ Loni Lewis and Sean Wong both missing out on FJ! w/ -$600 and -$1,600, respectively w/ Mattea Roach being the sole survivor in this case.
-Claire Dozier, husband of Jason from the not-so-merry 12/23/2019 episode where we had the first of two straight Daily Double LUMPS OF COAL back then, didn’t really fare too much better than her husband and finished second in a buzzsaw of $2,399 in a Mattea Roach runaway.
-The week following the end of Mattea Roach’s run was NOT a good one AT ALL, especially as far as Lach trash goes, and that resulted in a new SEASON-WORST LACH TRASH for the week. I ended up taking the following week off. Ending of this week did see the start of Ryan Long’s run, however. First half of the next week didn’t do too well with the Lach trash, either.
-We had not one but TWO TOTAL WASHOUTS on the week of 5/23. The 5/26 episode, which featured the second of those, was the WORST EPISODE OF THE SEASON. Combined pre-FJ! score was a pathetic $17,600, and of course a low Coryat score, very high Lach trash and so much Coryat lost to incorrect responses. There was NOTHING good about this episode, and I’m saying this even if it took place during Ryan Long’s reign. The brutal difficulty of the multi-part FJ! didn’t help, either. This week just never gained traction.
-The following took place in what was quite possibly THE WORST MONTH IN THE SHOW’S HISTORY in June — Tom Philipose foolishly wagered everything in FJ! on the 2nd and ended up busting out along w/ fellow challenger Maya Sudarsana even though it didn’t matter w/ Ryan Long’s wager; Mayim Bialik and the show faced backlash for apparently “bullying” Michael Toughill in regards to his FJ! response on the 7th; Ryan Long was alleged to have THROWN his last game but denied those claims; The FJ! clue on the 17th under the category of “19th Century Contemporaries”: “Congratulating her on the 1869 release of her biography, Frederick Douglass wrote, ‘I have wrought in the day –you in the night’”. The correct response was “Who is Harriet Tubman?” All three players came up w/ the correct response…but the problem is, Sadie Goldberger was DQ’d FOR LEAVING OUT THE LAST LETTER OF THE RESPONSE MEANWHILE SHE ADDED AN EXTRA ‘T’ TO THE FIRST NAME. So instead of her dethroning current champion Megan Wachpress w/ a score of $17,300 and finally putting an end to the ridiculously long FJ! sweep drought, that fatal mistake dropped her all the way down to $2,300 in last place and allowed Megan to extend her run to then a 4-day total of $51,601; On the 20th, Megan Wachspress’s win of $401, which was the lowest-scoring win this season, triggered bad history in her breaking Donald Burgo’s record from April 1986 for lowest 5-day score in the history of this version of the show (Burgo won $26,180 when the dollar values were half of what they are today; that translates to $52,360 — $358 more than what Megan has won), and then she was lucky enough to bring that run into one more day, albeit w/ yet another low score after yet another lackluster game, on the same day that Mayim Bialik announced she had COVID (Disclaimer: This was during the airing, NOT taping, of this day’s episode). and then when her run ended the next day, we had a dubious 14th (overall) DD skunking this season (possibly a record); Megan Wachpress won w/ a margin of $2 three times, but not exactly under good terms, but if that’s what she wanted, we go with it; Jeopardy! faced more backlash regarding the spelling of a FJ! answer; Marina Hays on the 28th made a middling FJ! wager that eliminated any chance of her winning the game; Halley Ryherd went viral for her incorrect response on the clue about Public Enemy where she confused that hip-hop group w/ Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch on the 29th. Two consecutive instances of a contestant setting a season record for lowest departure score (even though the latter of which took place on July 1st); Hoa Quach on the 30th overwagered BIG TIME which proved to be costly in this low-scoring game.
-Disappointing 4th of July episode.
-This is where things started going wrong for Jake Marvin of the 7/5 episode — We have this clue… “This word means lateness in loan payments & can lead to another “de” word, default”. Correct response… “What is delinquency?”, but Jake was DQ’d for using the wrong form of that word (delinquent). Even more infamously (and he went viral for this), after landing the first Daily Double… “Your standard phonograph record until the 1950s, or the age Diana Ross turned in 2022.” Remember the incident relating to Diana Ross’s age back in March that caused an uproar on social media? Well, IT HAPPENED AGAIN when he incorrectly guessed her age to be 90 when it’s actually 78. And to make matters worse, here is the clue for Final about national historic sites… “Less than 100 yards north of the J. Edgar Hoover Building is this notorious location”. Jake TOTALLY FORGETS THE CATEGORY and comes up w/ “What is Watergate?” which is a scandal and not a location (maybe he was thinking of the Watergate complex or Watergate office building), zeroing out and cementing his dishonor as among the season’s WORST CONTESTANTS.
-Trailing in a lock-tie situation (having exactly half the score of the leader) on 7/12, Ben Coller foolishly didn’t go all in on his FJ! wager effectively eliminating any chance to push for a tiebreaker or in this case taking advantage of leader Steve Clarke getting FJ! incorrect after wagering $1 in order to avoid a tiebreaker w/ Ben. Steve would be done the next day after foolishly thinking Corpus Christi has any remote chance of being connected to 3rd century B.C. ancient Greek philosophy.
-Long Islander and game show veteran Alfred Guy didn’t have much to add to his résumé from his latest game show appearance on this show.
-Here is the $600 “You Call Yourself A Fan?” clue of the Thursday episode of the finale week: “The ‘Cameron Crazies’ are students who show undying support for this university’s Blue Devils basketball teams.” Eventual champion Katrina Hill caused a STIR in the college sports world by referring to that fanbase as UNC fans when that nickname actually belongs to the fanbase of decades-old rival Duke. I’m sure both of these fanbases facepalmed hard at that oh so very wrong response. That would have been even more embarrassing had she not won.
-Mathematical errors in FJ! wagers somewhat plagued the final week of the season.
And that’s your very long list of best and worst moments of Season 38 of Jeopardy!.
Contestant of the Week for July 25-29, 2022
Not saying much at all, but Ed Coulson from Jeopardy! is your Contestant of the Week w/ a 2-day total of $40,200 which prevented a returning champion skunking for a second straight week.
Zach Flax from the Press Your Luck episode that was supposed to air last week is your Zonk Contestant of the Week… because in the Bonus Round he was close to approaching the $500K mark to win $1 million, but then he let greed get the best of him and kept going much to our dismay…and paid a VERY EXPENSIVE PRICE FOR IT w/ a WHAMMY TO WIPE OUT ALL OF THAT CASH & PRIZES, so instead of walking w/ nearly half a million dollars in cash & prizes he was sent home w/ a measly $27,750 ($25K in the last spin plus $2,750 from the maingame). Not very well played AT ALL, man! -___-
Dishonorable mentions:
-Two candidates for Zonk Answer of the Week — Tuesday’s FJ! clue under the category of “Literary Animals”: “This children’s book character introduced in 1926 & a friend of the title creature got his name from the sound he might make.” Correct Response: “Who is Eeyore?” (Mark Stover’s spelling of “Ee-or” was accepted). What did Alexa Jakob come up with? “Who is Hop the Bunny?” There’s no such character as that, girl. -__-; The $600 “You Call Yourself A Fan?” clue of Thursday’s episode: “The ‘Cameron Crazies’ are students who show undying support for this university’s Blue Devils basketball teams.” Eventual champion Katrina Hill caused a STIR in the college sports world by referring to that fanbase as UNC fans when that nickname actually belongs to the fanbase of decades-old rival Duke. I’m sure both of these fanbases facepalmed hard at that oh so very wrong response. That would have been even more embarrassing had she not won.
-Mathematical errors in FJ! wagers, and Katrina Hill underwagered costing her the game on Friday and failed to take advantage of Luigi de Guzman’s math error in his wager.
@gomezvintagereviews will take over the COTW posts for the coming weeks until the TPiR 50th season finale airs and then the start of the new game show season in September.
FINAL Jeopardy! Season 38 Stats
Total Winnings This Week: $117,902
Total Season Winnings: $7,386,219
Total Combined Coryat This Week: $198,600
Total Combined Coryat for the Season: $8,657,000
Total Lach Trash (Triple Stumpers) This Week: $41,400 from 34 triple stumpers
Total Lach Trash (Triple Stumpers) for the Season: $2,518,000 from 2,186 triple stumpers
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less-double correct responses)
-This Week: $30,000
-Season: $1,965,200
Correct/Incorrect
-This Week: 260/31
-Season: 12,048/1,956
Rebounds/Rebound Attempts
-This Week: 16/18
-Season: 737/983
Unplayed Clues ($ left on board)
-This Week: 0 ($0)
-Season: 82 ($74,200)
Most Unplayed Clues
-Day: 6 (Mar. 9)
-Week: 16 (Wk. 26)
Most $ left on board from Unplayed Clues
-Day: $7,200 (Apr. 11)
-Week: $9,200 (Wk. 31)
Best Weekly Winnings: $278,800 (Wk. 3)
Worst Weekly Winnings: $76,103 (Wk. 41)
Best Individual Coryat: Matt Amodio (Oct. 8; $38,000)
Worst Individual Coryat: Matt King (Nov. 23; -$6,400)
Best Combined Coryat: $51,200 (Oct. 8)
Worst Combined Coryat: $15,400 (Mar. 11)
Best Weekly Coryat: $222,200 (Wk. 1)
Worst Weekly Coryat: $129,200 (Wk. 26)
Lowest One-Day Lach Trash: $400 (Jan. 6)
Biggest One-Day Lach Trash: $22,600 (Mar. 11)
Least Maingame Triple Stumpers for One Day: 1 (Jan. 6)
Most Maingame Triple Stumpers for One Day: 19 (2x)
Least Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less-double correct responses) in one day: $800 (Jan. 11)
Most Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less-double correct responses) in one day: $18,200 (Mar. 7; Regular Play); $21,200 (Feb. 16; NCC Quarterfinals Game 12)
Lowest Weekly Lach Trash: $19,400 (Wk. 1)
Highest Weekly Lach Trash: $78,800 (Wk. 35)
Lowest Weekly Triple Stumpers: 20 (Wk. 1)
Highest Weekly Triple Stumpers: 68 (Wk. 35)
Least Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less-double correct responses) in one week: $20,400 (Wk. 17)
Most Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less-double correct responses) in one week: $57,400 (Wk. 26)
Biggest One-Day Score: Matt Amodio (Oct. 4; $83,000)
$50,000+ Wins: 20 (There was also a $50K+ 2nd place finish)
Biggest Champions: Matt Amodio ($1,518,601; Regular Play; Carryover from last season); Sam Buttery ($100,000; Professor’s Tournament); Amy Schneider ($1,382,800; Regular Play)
Lowest-Scoring Win: Megan Wachspress (Jun. 20; $401)
Lowest Departure-Score: Dave Bzdak ($2,000 + $1K consolation)
Lowest Score: Matt King (Nov. 23; -$6,400)
Daily Double Sweeps This Week: 0
- 3-for-3: 0
- 2-for-2: 0
- 1-for-1: 0
Daily Double Sweeps for the Season: 69
- 3-for-3: 69 (Two were true clean sweeps)
- 2-for-2: 0
- 1-for-1: 0
Perfect DD Weeks: 1
Daily Double Shutouts
-This Week: 0
-Season: 14
Unplayed Daily Double Clues (DD clues gone to waste)
-This Week: 0
-Season: 0
Final Jeopardy! Sweeps This Week: 1
- 3-for-3: 1
- 2-for-2: 0
- 1-for-1: 0
Final Jeopardy! Sweeps for the Season: 34
- 3-for-3: 28
- 2-for-2: 5
- 1-for-1: 1
FJ! Triple Stumpers
-This Week: 2
-Season: 48
FJ! Busts (Finish with $0)
-This Week: 1 (Champion Busts: 1)
-Season: 54 (Champion Busts: 6)
Aced Games (Must be 3-for-3 each for DDs & FJ): 5
Total Washouts (0-for-X each for DDs & FJ): 2
Gooseegg Victims Before FJ!: 21 (Champion Gooseeggs: 1)
Total Trainwrecks (No Winner): 0 (Times no one qualified for FJ!: 0)
5+-day Champions (Longest Winning Streaks): 8 (40 days (2nd All-Time); Amy Schneider)
Times Champion Swept a Week: 20
Tiebreakers: 3
Champions Dethroned This Week: 4
-2nd Place ($2K Consolation): 1
-3rd Place ($1K Consolation): 3
Champions Dethroned This Season: 62
-2nd Place ($2K Consolation): 36
-3rd Place ($1K Consolation): 26
Weekly Returning Champion Shutouts: 1
Player of the Week: Ed Coulson
Toughest Final Jeopardy! Category: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; Real People in Poetry
—
My Weekly Rating: 7 (C-)
My Season Rating: 7 (C-) (somewhat underwhelming second half (incl. the disastrous June) brought it down for me)
This season, especially the first half, was filled with magic and was arguably defined by Matt Amodio (carried from S37) and Amy Schneider’s historic runs early on w/ both of them making it over the $1M mark in the top 5 in both regular-play winnings and all-time winnings, the latter of which made history as the show’s first woman millionaire as well as the show’s openly-transgender contestant to qualify for the ToC. And then there’s Mattea Roach who made history as the show’s winningest Canadian, youngest ultra-champion and another LGBTQ+ representative in the ToC. And let’s also not forget about Jonathan Fisher and Ryan Long. And to top it off, there was never a realistic chance of some of the season records set during the first three weeks of the season during Matt’s run being beaten.
Even though we did get a couple more incredible runs (Mattea and Ryan), the second half didn’t quite have near the magic the first half did — Namely the FLUNK-FEST of a Quarterfinals round in the first-ever Jeopardy! National College Championship on primetime, the week of March 7 which was truly one of the MOST PAINFUL weeks of Jeopardy! I have ever covered in my four years of blogging about game shows, and an ugly May and even uglier June, the latter of which was likely the WORST MONTH IN THE SHOW’S ENTIRE HISTORY despite Ryan Long’s reign spanning during those months and save for the 8th and 9th of the latter. Although July was an improvement over those two months in most aspects, the magic had run out completely by that time as there were no more 5+-time champions after June 21st.
Through all the thick and thin, and all of this through the Mike Richards drama and the uncertainty about the hosting, and the ongoing effects of the pandemic, we went way up in winnings vs. last season thanks to all those incredible runs by Matt, Amy, Jonathan, Mattea and Ryan even if the winnings from the NCC weren’t included, and champion unseatings were down by almost half as a result. Sadly, there were only five clean sweeps for Daily Doubles and FJ! (six down from last season) although we had one less total washout (both of those this season took place in the same week).
BEST/WORST moments to come…
J! Quickcap: 7/29/2022 — 38TH S.F.
Newly-crowned champion Katrina Hill caused a STIR in the college sports world yesterday by referring to “Cameron Crazies” as UNC fans when that nickname actually belongs to the fanbase of decades-old rival Duke. I’m sure both of these fanbases facepalmed hard at that oh so very wrong response. This would have been even more embarrassing had she not won yesterday.
Hopefully we won’t have any such controversies as this one in the season finale.
Final S38 challengers are these gentlemen
-Luigi de Guzman, an attorney from Arlington, VA (He’s not Italian, believe it or not; He’s Filipino w/ a Spanish name (he did not disclose it) and Italian nickname, according to his Twitter)
-Darin Ciccotelli, an associate professor of rhetoric & composition from Long Beach, CA (born in southern NJ)
Returning champion: Katrina Hill (1-day $27,601)
Pre-FJ! Scores: Luigi: $20,800/Katrina: $11,800/Darin: $11K (Combined: $43,600)
Correct/Incorrect: 55/7
Rebounds/Rebound Attempts: 4/4
Unplayed Clues ($ left on the board): 0 ($0)
Coryat Score: $43,000 (+$1,400 vs. yesterday)
Lach Trash: $4,400 from 4 triple stumpers (-$2,200 and -2 TS’s vs. yesterday)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $6,600 (+$800 vs. yesterday)
Daily Double Correct Answers: 2
Final Jeopardy! Correct Answers: 2 3
Winner: Luigi ($23,401)
Katrina departs w/ $29,601. If only she would’ve taken Andy Saunder’s advice to cover Luigi w/ a $10,201 wager.
My Rating: 8 (B) (had to take a point off for Katrina’s underwager failing to capitalize on Luigi’s mathematical error)
ant0824’s Rating: TBA
Ismael’s Rating: 8 (B-)
Adam’s Rating: TBA
Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings Confirmed to Continue Splitting Hosting Duties in Season 40
Yesterday, the reports on Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings continuing to split hosting duties for Season 40 of Jeopardy! were confirmed, w/ Jennings kicking things off in September and w/ Bialik being said to host in January. Bialik will also host primetime versions of the show including the upcoming Celebrity Jeopardy! revival.
J! Quickcap: 7/28/2022
All-female penultimate panel
-Katrina Hill, a non-profit professional from Alexandria, VA
-Heidi Reese, a patent examiner orig. from Bay City, MI
Returning champion: Brianne Barker (1-day $11,700)
Pre-FJ! Scores: Katrina: $20,200/Brianne: $13,800/Heidi: $7,300 (Combined: $41,300)
Correct/Incorrect: 53/6
Rebounds/Rebound Attempts: 3/4
Unplayed Clues ($ left on the board): 0 ($0)
Coryat Score: $41,600 (+$2,200 vs. yesterday)
Lach Trash: $6,600 from 6 triple stumpers (-$2,200 and -1 TS vs. yesterday)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $5,800 (No change vs. yesterday)
Daily Double and Final Jeopardy! Correct Answers: 2 each
Winner: Katrina ($27,601)
Brianne departs w/ $12,700.
My Rating: 8 (B-)
ant0824’s Rating: TBA
Ismael’s Rating: 8 (B-)
Adam’s Rating: TBA
J! Quickcap: 7/27/2022
Midweek tri-state women whose last names start w/ ‘B’
-Brianne Barker, a biology professor from Madison, NJ
-Colleen Birney, a court monitor from Milford, CT
Returning champion: Ed Coulson (2-day $40,200)
Pre-FJ! Scores: Ed: $17,600/Brianne: $14,700/Colleen: $8,200 (Combined: $40,500)
Correct/Incorrect: 52/6
Rebounds/Rebound Attempts: 4/4
Unplayed Clues ($ left on the board): 0 ($0)
Coryat Score: $39,400 (+$2,800 vs. yesterday)
Lach Trash: $8,800 from 7 triple stumpers (-$1,800 and -1 TS vs. yesterday)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $5,800 (-$1,000 vs. yesterday)
Daily Double Correct Answers: 2
Final Jeopardy! Correct Answers: 0 (Correct: Who is Galileo?)
Winner: Brianne ($11,700)
Ed departs w/ $41,200, and with that, the field for the 2022 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions to take place in November has been locked (save for the Second Chance Tournament).
My Rating: 5 (D) (competitive match that faltered right at the end)
ant0824’s Rating: TBA
Ismael’s Rating: 5 (D-)
Adam’s Rating: TBA
J! Quickcap: 7/26/2022
Reports yesterday have indicated that Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings will continue to split hosting duties next season like they have been all this season, though, neither Bialik, Jennings or even J! themselves confirmed these reports to be true. Only time will tell when the decision will be made, but signs are pointing towards Bialik being chosen for the job.
The fact that a permanent host still has not been confirmed yet at this point is pretty disappointing.
Today challengers
-Alexa Jakob, an electrical engineer from Queens, NY
-Mark Stover, a physician from Flagstaff, AZ
Returning champion: Ed Coulson (1-day $17,399)
Pre-FJ! Scores: Ed: $16K/Mark: $11,400/Alexa: $4,800 (Combined: $32,200)
Correct/Incorrect: 50/7
Rebounds/Rebound Attempts: 2/3
Unplayed Clues ($ left on the board): 0 ($0)
Coryat Score: $36,600 (-$1,400 vs. yesterday)
Lach Trash: $10,600 from 8 triple stumpers (-$400 and -1 TS vs. yesterday)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $6,800 (+$1,800 vs. yesterday)
Daily Double Correct Answers: 1
Final Jeopardy! Correct Answers: 2
I’m Hop the Bunny! Hop! Hop! Is that so, Alexa? -__- (Likely Zonk Answer of the Week) Not only that, she may have miscalculated on her wager. Not that it ended up mattering, anyway.
Winner: Ed ($22,801 (2-day $40,200))
With that, we will end this season w/ only one returning champion skunking for the second season in a row (& one skunk threat which is one down from last season)!
My Rating: 6 (D+)
ant0824’s Rating: TBA
Ismael’s Rating: 6 (D+)
Adam’s Rating: TBA
J! Quickcap: 7/25/2022
Let’s hope we finish the season strong on this final week.
And surprisingly enough, a host has STILL not been announced yet for next season.
Californian challengers
-Angela Xu, a corporate lawyer from San Mateo
-Ed Coulson, an economics & real estate professor from Dana Point
Returning champion: Karla Fossett (1-day $16,600)
Pre-FJ! Scores: Ed: $18,700/Angela: $10K/Karla: $7K (Combined: $35,700)
Correct/Incorrect: 50/5
Rebounds/Rebound Attempts: 3/3 (one each)
Unplayed Clues ($ left on the board): 0 ($0)
Coryat Score: $38,000
Lach Trash: $11,000 from 9 triple stumpers
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $5,000
Daily Double Correct Answers: 2
Final Jeopardy! Correct Answers: 0 (Correct: Who is Stevie Nicks?)
BUSTED OUT: Karla (departs w/ $17,600)
Winner: Ed ($17,399)
My Rating: 5 (D-) (tough call)
ant0824’s Rating: TBA
Ismael’s Rating: 5 (D-)
Adam’s Rating: TBA
GAME SHOW QUICKIES — Your Game Show Hub For The TL;DR! 