Tuesday TV Touchbase: Jeopardy

Before we kick off today's Tuesday TV Touchbase, a quick word to note the passing of Paul Reubens who died yesterday at age 70. Otherwise known as Pee Wee Herman.

Pee Wee was a frequent presence on TV in the 1980's on talk shows and stand up shows as well as his own slightly deranged children's show, Pee Wee's Play House.   

Paul Reubens was a very talented comedian and actor who unfortunately was frequently subsumed by his greatest creation, an incredibly weird and deeply subversive creation.  

This past Friday saw the 39th season of Jeopardy finally come to a close. 

Was it just me or did this season go on an inordinately long time?

Wheel of Fortune wrapped it's season in May.  Usually these two shows start and end around the same time.  Instead Jeopardy staggered on for 2 more months after Pat and Vanna said goodbye for the summer. 

And I do mean "staggered".  The last weeks of the show felt almost rote and uninspired with no contestants catching fire with the game or the fans. What we got was a row of uninteresting one and two game winners. It was only in the last three games we got a 3 game winner with red haired Lucas Partridge.   

Did the season drag on longer than normal? Were the producers scraping the bottom of the contestant barrel? Or was it just Jeopardy fatigue? 

Whatever the reason for my feelings about the latter part of season 39, the end of the season on Friday felt like a relief. 

From the past year, I will say Celebrity Jeopardy was more engaging and interesting than I anticipated. Yeah, it went on too long and there were celebrities who did not seem to have a clue how Jeopardy is played but the players who did make it to the championship round were truly smart, knew how to work the buzzer and also how to take advantage of Daily Double wagering.  And I will give credit that Mayim Bialik was a good choice for hosting this series.

The Ken Jennings hosted Jeopardy Masters lived up to it's billing as a major platform for some of Jeopardy's best champions in epic competition. Yeah, it may have been a foregone conclusion that James Holzhauer was going to win this thing but down the stretch, Mattea Roach did make him fight for it. And Ken Jennings with his inside baseball knowledge of Jeopardy championship competition and his weird sense of humor made this special series truly special.  

Jeopardy did not quite escape host drama this year.  Mayim Bialik was supposed to finish out the regular series as host to the end of the season but she abruptly dropped out with 4 weeks of shows left to record to support the Writer's Guild strike.  

Ken Jennings returned and nimbly picked up where he left off. Look, I've said before that I'm OK with Mayim Bialik but I really think this is Ken's show and deserves to be the sole host of the show. 

There is a question of when Jeopardy will return. The  original plan was for season 40 to start with the Tournament of Champions.  There was a rumor that if the writers were still on strike, the show would re-use clues from previous episodes.

But several former champions who qualified for the ToC have gone on record that they refuse to cross the picket line to appear on Jeopardy.   

The show's producers announced they will delay the ToC but have said nothing about the regular show. 

I'm hoping those in charge at Jeopardy do not opt for any actions that put anyone in the awkward position of crossing the picket lines.  And I hope no one puts Ken Jennings in the crosshairs of being loyal to the show but also needing to do the right thing and support the writers. Ken already got dragged across the coals for coming in to host the shows already written. It could only get worse for Ken if Jeopardy forces him to host for shows that are not written.  

Next week on ye olde Touchbase, Good Omens 2. 

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.