CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA: 'Jeopardy!' viewers have been puzzled in the last few days due to the uncertain announcements regarding its upcoming season. To put everyone at ease, the trivia game show has officially announced some of its future plans.
The 'Tournament of Champions' has reportedly been postponed until further notice after several champs that were supposed to participate in the show declared that they won't be participating. Other than that, 'Jeopardy!' is set to follow the usual schedule of airing the reruns from next week.
'Tournament of Champions' delayed after protest from champs
'Tournament of Champions' is an adjacent series of the trivia game show that invites the champs who were able to sustain a streak of five or more days on the 'Jeopardy!' stage. This means that the show contains winners much loved by regular viewers who are enthusiastic about their favorite contestants gracing the Alex Trebek stage again. As the WGA strike continues in full swing, 'Jeopardy!' was reported to reuse the archive of clues from the previous seasons so far as the writers are yet to return from the picket line, creating a point of contention for the champs and leading some of them to announce that they will be stepping back from joining the tournament, including Ray Lalonde, Ben Goldstein, Ben Chan, Suresh Krishnan, Luigi de Guzman, and Hannah Wilson, to name a few.
A representative from the production company Sony Pictures Television revealed that the show had never planned to go forward with the tournaments that are usually scheduled after the regular season ends, according to TV Line. "[We] never had any intention of producing a Tournament of Champions… until the strike is resolved," the insider said, adding, "No contestants have been contacted regarding their availability for any postseason tournaments, including the 'ToC'. The 'Jeopardy!' postseason represents the pinnacle of our competition, and it should feature our strongest players playing our toughest original material."
'Jeopardy!' sticks to its regular schedule
The spokesperson from the production company further went on to announce that the show will be sticking to the rest of the regular schedule, which will be the Season 40 of 'Jeopardy!'. "We have always been careful to honor our WGA agreements, and we would never air game material not created by WGA writers," the representative emphasized, referring to the show's response to a previous strike and reiterating that the writers will be fairly treated. "However, just as we did, led by Alex Trebek, during the 2007-2008 strike, we will deliver first-run episodes again this fall… featuring the best of our WGA written material," expressed the spokesperson. Furthermore, no announcement has been made regarding the co-hosts Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings continuing as the successors of Trebek. Bialik joined the picket line in June, but it is not yet known if Jennings will do the same.
