I'm enjoying Matt's safe-but-enormous Final Jeopardy! bids. They lend a bit of unpredictability to the end of a blowout game. It's good TV. Also reminds me of Martin Scorsese's line in the movie Quiz Show:
“The audience didn't tune in to watch some amazing display of intellectual ability. They just wanted to watch the money.”
I know a lot of people don't like Joe Buck, but his early performance makes me wonder why Jeopardy! didn't ask more announcers to guest host. Alex Trebek himself (who also started out as an announcer) gave two names as potential successors: Laura Coates, a CNN analyst and satellite radio host, and Alex Faust, the play-by-play announcer for the NHL's Los Angeles Kings. Both make a living off their voices, and I don't think either was offered a chance to guest host.
Makes you wonder if the fix was in, with the show's producers asking mostly news people who are unlikely to leave their big, high-profile jobs. Here is the breakdown of guest hosts:
8 TV news hosts and correspondents
2 former contestants
2 actors
1 (mis?)informational TV host
1 pro athlete
1 sports announcer
1 Jeopardy! executive producer
It's his style! Totally fits his usual strategy. Bet it all on the Daily Double in the Jeopardy Round to build a big lead. Generally bet conservatively on the Daily Double during Double Jeopardy to preserve the lead.
Then, bet almost as much as he can while still preserving the win.
That's why he has made so much money in so few shows. It has been his MO the entire run. The only thing that surprised me was that he didn't know the answer.
I was also surprised he didn't get Steinway, on the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy. I was yelling it at him, but I guess he didn't hear me.
Here's a ranking of the guest hosts in the Washington Post (sorry, but I can't find the article anywhere else):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-...-hosts-ranked/
In the opinion of the author of the article, the top four were Ken Jennings, Buzzy Cohen, Katie Couric, and LeVar Burton. The bottom three were Dr. Oz, Joe Buck, and George Stephanopoulos.
https://twitter.com/clairemcnear/sta...97980149321732
Sony officially announces that Mike Richards and Mayim Bialik will be the new hosts - plural - of Jeopardy!, with Richards as the full-time host and Bialik hosting primetime and spinoff series.
~rthomas