JEOPARDY! bosses have revealed that the game show is thrusting future Tournament of Champions specials to the beginning of the season.
2022’s five-week-long event interrupted fan-favorite Cris Pannullo in middle of his winning streak, which they admitted was “weird” in hindsight.
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Executive producer Michael Davies revealed that Jeopardy! is shuffling its schedule after hearing it from confused fans.
On Monday’s podcast Inside Jeopardy!, the top boss admitted: “We had a slightly weird thing where we kicked off the regular season for five weeks.
“Then we went to postseason [or tournaments], then we came back and went back into regular season again.”
Instead, he added: “We’re going to kick off the season with [tournaments] then go into the season thereafter. I think it will work better.”
Season 39 of Jeopardy! began in early September 2022.
The tournament season then aired instead, starting in mid-October with the new Second Chance Competition where 18 deserving non-winners scored return flights.
After two weeks of those games, the show then went right into a three-week-long Tournament of Champions won by Amy Schneider.
The trouble was, all of that exciting TV stopped eventual 21-time winner Cris in his tracks.
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Cris – who wound up becoming the 5th highest-earning contestant ever with $748,000 – returned mid-streak to abruptly keep going.
‘NEVER GO THIS LONG AGAIN’
At the time, an angry internet thread erupted on Reddit where fans were loving the specials but agreed that leaving Cris to wait in the wings was wonky.
The internet thread was titled: “Is it just me or does anyone miss Chris Pannullo?”
“Having not seen Chris Pannullo since October 14th, I admit he’s starting to feel like ancient history,” another fan agreed.
A third fumed: “I honestly pray they never go this long again without normal sessions.”
And a fourth: “I love seeing all my old favorites, but there’s something about the ‘normal’ sessions I wish to have back.
Is it weird that I’m starting to get bored?”
TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS 2023
The 2023 Tournament of Champions would instead air in early September when the normal season usually starts.
To prioritize these events, as well as the regular show, Jeopardy! will also be doing away with smaller tournaments or be putting them elsewhere – like in primetime.
“We do understand the value of new players coming to the Alex Trebek stage,” Davies added.
“We could expand the postseason [or tournaments] to nine weeks, ten weeks, 11 weeks – whatever we decide, but we will have plenty of new players still.”
“I love professor’s tournament,” longtime producer Sarah Foss said on the podcast.
Davies then added: “But tell me Sam Buttrey [who won a Professor’s Tournament and was a finalist in the Tournament of Champions] couldn’t have competed on the regular show?”
So far this season, four contestants have won big enough to qualify for next year’s tournament.
Those would be fan-favorite Ray Lalonde with 13 wins, former poker ace Cris, five-day champ Luigi de Guzman and four-day champ and priest David Sibley.
The minimum to qualify is four wins so more contestants will hit that marker as this season goes on.
In addition, 18 others – if not more – will be selected again for the Second Chance competition.
Over the summer, Ken and actress Mayim Bialik were announced as the permanent replacements for the late longtime host, Alex Trebek.
Executive producer Davies – who replaced the ousted Mike Richards – filled a job that before them, hadn’t changed hands in decades either so all eyes are on how the show handles its period of unprecedented growth.
The game show also announced its first-ever annual Jeopardy! Masters on Tuesday which will feature James Holzhauer and five more greats coming to primetime as early as this spring.
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