The big story with Jeopardy is as it should be, a major ground breaking run by a remarkable contestant. Andrea and I were on hand to watch Matt Amodio cross the $1 million mark on Friday's game.
Matt seems a bit looser than he was in at the end of last season. He still asks all questions with "What?" even if the clue is about a person.
There's a video clip with Matt that makes this unusual phrasing a feature rather than a bug.
There were a lot of promotional clips for the show spotlighting Matt Amodio and not the host, at least for the first week.
We watched the week with Mike Richards and it was kind of awkward.
Like having Thanksgiving dinner with your mom and dad... and his girlfriend.
Mike as host wasn't inherently bad but there was nothing particularly remarkable about him either. Which kind of underscored everyone's misgivings about why he got the job. Since there's nothing special about his hosting abilities, one is left to speculate he got the job because he was in charge.
For the first week, we simply wanted Matt Amodio to outlast Mike Richards. And he did.
When Mayam Bialik took over the next week, I felt a palpable sense of relief with her at the podium. She's tightened up her delivery a bit, giggling less at the funnier clues like she did in her two week guest host stint. As much as I wanted Ken Jennings for the host spot (and he'll get his chance again in two weeks), I really feel that Jeopardy can get into a pretty good groove with Mayam as host.
Speaking of being in a groove, how long can Matt Amodio continue as Jeopardy champion? Having become only the 3rd contestant to win a million dollars in regular season play, I guess the next two targets are the records set by James Holzhauser and Ken Jennings.
Matt is not infallible. He had a close call one game where he went into Double Jeopardy not only in 3rd place but in negative numbers. He had another game where he was within reach of the 2nd place contestant for Final Jeopardy.
Andrea and I would like to see Matt last long enough to get to Ken's turn as host. Ken meets the man trying to break his record, that would be cool.
Meanwhile, Wheel of Fortune launched it's 39th season with some changes.
New logo and a new look for the studio. Lot of bright colors and no more blue screen vacation locales.
New interstitial music which is too invasive and Pat Sajak can barely be heard over it sometimes.
And Pat no longer makes the final spin of the game. It's made by whichever player has control of the wheel when the bell sounds indicating time is up. Andrea suspected maybe it was getting too hard for Pat to reach down to spin the wheel as he gets older.
Here is what Pat Sajak had to say about it: "The reason is, honestly, I’ve never liked the idea of imposing the host on the game. That always bothered me a little bit. I was looking for a way around it and we finally got to talking and we said, ‘Look, someone’s spinning the wheel anyway. We’ll save time and just let them spin it.'”
Pat Sajak and Vanna White have contracts to be a part of the show through 2024. So barring any health problems, Sony isn't anticipating any host changing drama on Wheel for the immediate future.
But as Pat Sajak (who is 74 years old) said, "We're certainly closer to the end than the beginning. I'd like to leave before people tune in and look at me and say, 'Ooh, what happened to him?'"
I do worry that Pat maybe pushing his luck. Most days he seems to be enjoying himself and has a good handle on the game. But there are times when I wonder if Sajak has stayed a little too long.
And Pat and Vanna have more work to do with a 2nd go round of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. Jason Alexander played the game very well in the season 2 opener, scoring just a bit shy of 200 grand for his charity.
I suppose Sony Studios hopes to get Jeopardy settled once and for all before having to deal with any succession issues on Wheel of Fortune.
OK, that's it for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week. I watch way too much TV and there will be more to talk about next week.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
No comments:
Post a Comment