Jeopardy GOAT Match 1

[Joe Hass]

I found out over the weekend that they the episodes were hour-long, and feared to myself that they were going to try to stretch out a single game. I was very relieved Monday afternoon when I discovered they were going to the two-game format.

They were about 20 clues into Game 1's Jeopardy round when I thought to myself "I don't think they've missed yet." And that's exactly what happened: the three of them ran that board like nobody's business.

Ken's True Daily Double call on the second Daily Double of Game 1(and the look on his face as he was trying to suss out the response) was absolutely nerve-wracking..

James's Nelson Muntz taunt of Brad when he buzzed in on the Dick Clark clue was great.

A question for anyone: when Ken answered the Game 2 Jeopardy round Daily Double, he originally just gave the first name, then there was a pause, then he gave the full name, to which Alex said "Thank you!", the implication was that Alex would've ruled Ken wrong had he not given the full name. I thought a contestant would've been given a "more specific" request. Was there a rule change at some point, or am I just flat wrong?

Poor Brad just got whammied (wrong game show, but still) by the two DDs in Game 2 Double Jeopardy round. He looked like he was just trying to get back into the swing of things. But there you go: the unbeatable man didn't just get beaten: he got his rear handed to him.

And the overnight ratings are in: 14.37 million, which puts it behind only Sunday's Golden Globes for the highest-rated entertainment show of all year: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jeopardy-zoeys-extraordinary-playlist-tv-ratings-jan-7-2020-1268031

[Doug Fields]

 

 

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com <tvor...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Joe Hass
Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 12:38 PM
To: tvor...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [TV orNotTV] Jeopardy GOAT Match 1

 

A question for anyone: when Ken answered the Game 2 Jeopardy round Daily Double, he originally just gave the first name, then there was a pause, then he gave the full name, to which Alex said "Thank you!", the implication was that Alex would've ruled Ken wrong had he not given the full name. I thought a contestant would've been given a "more specific" request. Was there a rule change at some point, or am I just flat wrong?

 

 

The way I interpreted that was, after Jennings gave his first name answer there was a brief pause until he tried again with the full name, which was accepted.  The camera was on Jennings the whole time, so I can’t know for sure, but I was imagining Alex glancing over at the judges, looking for a quick thumbs up or down, and Jennings beat him to the punch with his more-specific second try.

 

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

[Jon Delfin]

Indeed, the lack of response from Alex was certainly a signal to Ken.

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[Tom Wolper]

On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 6:56 PM Jon Delfin <jond...@gmail.com> wrote:

Indeed, the lack of response from Alex was certainly a signal to Ken.

I think Alex looks over to the judges when a contestant gives a response that is not word-for-word on his card. They then give him a thumbs up, down, or another sign that they need more information.

[Jon Delfin]

And then there's what happened tonight. Too early to be specific, but you'll catch it. 

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[Joe Hass]

(I'm just going to keep going in a single thread rather than make a fresh one for each night.)

I cannot get over just how badly Brad is getting crushed in this. In Game 1 Jeopardy, he only buzzed in *four* times, the latest after clue 10. Then he can't find either Daily Double in Double Jeopardy, which led to this scoreline after clue 13: James 27,200; Ken 16,800; Brad 4,400.

Ken deserves no style points for either his Dustin Hoffman impersonation or his hammer and sickle.

I encourage more cryptic category names as we saw in Game 2 Jeopardy.

Then came The Round That Will Give Brad Nightmares For The Rest Of His Life: getting whitewashed (again!) on the opening-clue Daily Double, then getting tongue tied and probably losing count of the number of letters for "uncharacteristically" (though even if Alex hadn't cut him off, it sounded to me like he failed to pronounce the "al"). He went two-for-six!

My wife, the Packers shareholder, did not appreciate James's editorializing on the Green Bay response.

This was not the night when I would've thought we'd find out how they compute a two-game score when a contestant fails to qualify for Final Jeopardy!

Interestingly, the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune both pushed tweets on the results during the window between the east and west airings. The Trib actually spoiled the result in the tweet.

And the viewership numbers were higher than Tuesday: 14.8 million.

Personal sidebar: I signed up for YouTube TV so I could watch the episodes night-of, but after they aired, since my six-year-old has a 7:15 CT bedtime. But on both nights, Matthew has scammed his way into watching the recording when I did and became totally gripped by this, telling my wife last night the best part of the day was "watching Jeopardy with dad". I have to go pick him up so we can get dinner and watch tonight live so he doesn't scam me into yet another 9:30 bedtime on a school night.

[Brad Beam]

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Joe Hass

>(I'm just going to keep going in a single thread rather than make a fresh one for each night.)

 

I’ve read that the network specials are pulling in over 14M a night, but how does that compare to the nightly syndicated numbers?

 

_   _

|_>|_>  Brad Beam- Belle WV

|_>|_>  http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

[Jon Delfin]

https://deadline.com/2019/06/jeopardy-1-syndication-ratings-finish-final-full-week-of-james-holzhauer-streak-1202630982/

Safe to say the show's ratings in weeks when there's no phenomenal player are at the lower end of the scale, so probably close to 9.6 million.

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[Bob Jersey]

Joe Hass, in part, Thurs. (1/10):

My wife, the Packers shareholder, did not appreciate James's editorializing on the Green Bay response.

 

Does she use words like "p*ckerhead"?

Interestingly, the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune both pushed tweets on the results during the window between the east and west airings. The Trib actually spoiled the result in the tweet.

Did you use words like "p*ckerheads" when reading that?

B

[Tom Wolper]

On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 11:39 PM Brad Beam <b.b...@suddenlink.net> wrote:

 

I’ve read that the network specials are pulling in over 14M a night, but how does that compare to the nightly syndicated numbers?

The show airs at different times and different channels in different markets so that makes comparing the numbers unfair.

[Joe Hass]

Apologies for missing Match 3, but things got away from me.

I've argued previously on this board that the decision when relaunching the game to shift from all players keeping what they've earned during the game to only the winner doing so makes the Final Jeopardy round merely an exercise in proper wagering. The last true Final Jeopardy now comes from the first game of a two-game match: where you still have the unknown of the second game requiring you to play on your confidence in the category.

That makes when we found out what Ken Jennings wagered on the category "US Political History" the defining moment of this tournament. I don't know if anyone else was shocked when he went all in to create an almost insurmountable lead in Match 3, but both my wife and I yelled out in shock when we saw 25,600 on the display. I 

I hope the member of Standards & Practices who abruptly decided, in the middle of this tournament, that the players had to verbally announce a wager for Daily Doubles got the stick our of their ass removed safely.

I enjoyed the number of people on my Facebook wall who were absolutely thrilled that they knew the Morticia Addams response that was a triple stumper.

Watching James go on a six-response run to start March 3, Game 2, only to have the Daily Double take it all away was oddly satisfying, more than it should have been.

The category reveal at the start of Match 4 Game 1 Jeopardy round was the first time I felt irritated.

Brad finding the first Daily Double, betting it all, and missing became an odd, comforting feeling throughout this tournament.

And then Ken goes off and bets it all in Final Jeopardy *again*!!! James bowing down to him as the student became the master.

James's murder on network television of Brad before the start of game 2, complete with the evil grin, cemented his place as Jeopardy's ultimate heel.

The look on Ken's face as he tried to get to Courtney Love, only to wind up inexplicably on Charles Lindberg is his version of Watson's "What is Toronto???".

HOLY CRAP, WE HAVE A NON-TRUE DAILY DOUBLE WAGER, AND IT ONLY TOOK EIGHT ROUNDS TO GET THERE!!!

James seemed absolutely frustrated when he was trying to find the second Daily Double. When he did find it, it was the 19th Clue of the round, which was as late as it happened in the tournament

I would've killed to see a Zerg Cam on Ken when they revealed James's response on Final Jeopardy. Like a true poker player, James didn't move a muscle.

And now we have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday back.

I will say that the uncredited masters of these four days have to be the writers. It would've been (relatively) easy to make seven games of brutal, back-breaking clues that would've blown the audience out of the water. But I remember the fact that my Facebook timeline had a few "I knew who Morticia Addams was!" posts from Thursday night. There's something to be said about knowing the answer to a true Triple Stumper, and when the contestants are these three, that makes it even better.

I shared this on my Facebook feed: Thursday night, near the end of Double Jeopardy, the 400-point clue in Road Trip was "You're nearing the eastern end of I-44 when you enter St. Louis & see this 630-foot-tall thing". I knew it, but I also thought my six-year-old, Matthew, might know it as well, since we have relatives and friends living there. Given that this was only the fifth Jeopardy game he'd ever seen (the challenge of living in the Chicago market where it airs at 3:30), I knew he didn't know that it was okay to call out responses, but he'd seen my wife and me respond. I am transmitting the mental waves that if he knows it, he should call it out. And with the tentativeness of someone who thinks they're doing the right thing, but is wary of being told otherwise, he said "Arch". 

The program was paused while high fives were exchanged in triumph.

He did it again last night on the "Bazinga" response (though I screwed that up because I responsed at the same time). He was so proud of himself.

It was all awesome.

On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 11:37 AM Joe Hass <hassg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I found out over the weekend that they the episodes were hour-long, and feared to myself that they were going to try to stretch out a single game. I was very relieved Monday afternoon when I discovered they were going to the two-game format.

They were about 20 clues into Game 1's Jeopardy round when I thought to myself "I don't think they've missed yet." And that's exactly what happened: the three of them ran that board like nobody's business.

Ken's True Daily Double call on the second Daily Double of Game 1(and the look on his face as he was trying to suss out the response) was absolutely nerve-wracking..

James's Nelson Muntz taunt of Brad when he buzzed in on the Dick Clark clue was great.

A question for anyone: when Ken answered the Game 2 Jeopardy round Daily Double, he originally just gave the first name, then there was a pause, then he gave the full name, to which Alex said "Thank you!", the implication was that Alex would've ruled Ken wrong had he not given the full name. I thought a contestant would've been given a "more specific" request. Was there a rule change at some point, or am I just flat wrong?

Poor Brad just got whammied (wrong game show, but still) by the two DDs in Game 2 Double Jeopardy round. He looked like he was just trying to get back into the swing of things. But there you go: the unbeatable man didn't just get beaten: he got his rear handed to him.

And the overnight ratings are in: 14.37 million, which puts it behind only Sunday's Golden Globes for the highest-rated entertainment show of all year: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jeopardy-zoeys-extraordinary-playlist-tv-ratings-jan-7-2020-1268031

[Diner]

On Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at 12:15:56 PM UTC-5, Joe Hass wrote:

That makes when we found out what Ken Jennings wagered on the category "US Political History" the defining moment of this tournament. I don't know if anyone else was shocked when he went all in to create an almost insurmountable lead in Match 3, but both my wife and I yelled out in shock when we saw 25,600 on the display. 

I don't think Ken drastically changed his playing style, except to go all in on Daily Doubles. But seeing him do it effortlessly was very satisfying.

 

The category reveal at the start of Match 4 Game 1 Jeopardy round was the first time I felt irritated.

Eh, no biggie. It may have been network promotion, but they did it in their usual fairly-witty way.

 

James's murder on network television of Brad before the start of game 2, complete with the evil grin, cemented his place as Jeopardy's ultimate heel.

Funniest moment of the whole tournament! I loved it. To me, it came off more as teasing than being a heel.

 

It was all awesome.

Absolutely.

[Joe Hass]

To clarify, I was using it in the wrestling kayfabe-style definition as opposed to anything truly nefarious or mean.

[David Bruggeman]

Holzhauer is willing to poke fun at himself, usually on Twitter.  Jennings is happy to pile on.

https://twitter.com/kenjennings/status/1215456737446125568?lang=en

 

David

[Diner]

Thoughts on the GOAT... from the WOAT.

https://slate.com/culture/2020/01/jeopardy-goat-worst-score-ever-stephanie-hull-interview.html

[David Bruggeman]

Not for nothing, but the next Adult test dates were announced - January 28 (5P/8E), 29 (6P/9E) and 30 (8P/11E).

https://www.jeopardy.com/be-on-j

David

[Tom Wolper]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 12:10 AM 'David Bruggeman' via TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Not for nothing, but the next Adult test dates were announced - January 28 (5P/8E), 29 (6P/9E) and 30 (8P/11E).

https://www.jeopardy.com/be-on-j

I have been following Ken Jennings on Twitter for years. During last year's Holzahuer run he would post links to interviews he did. When asked about how he would match up against Holzhauer he said that it was only relevant to the 2004 Ken Jennings as age plays a factor especially with timing the clicker. I'm glad we got to see that tested. He also gave Holzhauer credit for changing the way the game is played at the top level. In his (and Rutter's) day they went through categories from the top down and made modest Daily Double and Final Jeopardy bets.

Tweeting after the tournament he said it was Holzhauer's influence that made him play so aggressively. Rutter also played the same way with much different results.

I have a gut feeling that this is a way of wrapping up the Trebek era of Jeopardy.

[Diner]

In other Jeopardy news... 

I felt so bad for this woman last night. It looked like she was having a panic attack on national television.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jeopardy-fans-rally-support-contestant-struggled-anxiety-064314426.html

As much as I love to watch Jeopardy and bitch and yell at contestants who give wrong answers, I know that if I ever got on the show my performance would be closer to Priscilla's than Ken Jennings'. I think she deserves a lot of credit for getting as far as she did. 

The struggle is real, folks.

[Joe Hass]

Here's the part that breaks my heart. She gets the call. She undoubtedly tells everyone and their uncle she's going to be on. Then this happens. And now she's got two months where everyone is outrageously excited for you, and you alone (or close to alone) know, and there's nothing you can realistically do short of revealing the outcome. ("So when's your air date?" "I believe they told me never.")

My sympathies to Priscilla.

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[chi...@nc.rr.com]

Getting to Stage 10 is not an accident (except for that one guy who made it twice, but we don't talk about him).

You take a test. You pass the test and are randomly chosen for a callback. You take TWO more tests and play a mock game. Then you spend 18 months of your life hoping lightning strikes twice. It does, and then you get the Call.

Being on Jeopardy! is the culmination of a lifetime of mental fortitude, knowledge, luck, and courage. Just getting the call is reason for celebration.

From one third-placer to another, my hat is off to her. :)

~D

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[Dave Sikula]

I can sympathize. I’ve never been more nervous in my life than I was in my first game. My knees were shaking like I was jackhammering. Performing live before a thousand people? Child’s play. First game on Jeopardy? Terror.

—Dave Sikula