I think she is doing a good job, and I don't care about whatever crap she does outside the show.
More importantly, Matt whiffed and lost 15 large on a simple Daily Double that I knew. I was yelling the answer to him but I guess he couldn't hear me.
What is with that little grin after each of his answers/questions?!? Did he have a crush on Blossom or something?
It doesn't REALLY matter that much who the host is, because the game sells itself, but I do find her kinda clonky and frumpy rather than really crisp and together. Takes away a little from the feeling of the show if the host/hostess isn't really "on it" like you can imagine him or her being a successful contestant. She seems almost suprised when she reads what the answer is rather than projecting "I knew this, and you could've too!"
Of course they have the answers in front of them, but nevertheless it always seemed to me like Alex was smart and crisp and focused, and I also felt that with Joe Buck and even Richards. Jennings it goes without saying.
Jeopardy! has a funny way of hitting you where it hurts. This profile of Matt Amodio says that he's a Ph.D. candidate in computer science, so of course he lost $15,000 on a computer science question. (My brain landed on Alan Turing, too, but I can see how the Google clue might skew him toward Tim Berners-Lee.)
You referred to the outcome earlier, but that Final Jeopardy! about 1980s Movies from Monday is my nightmare. Easy category that tempts a big wager, but with a clue that you either know or you don't:
The Dip used to kill characters in this 1988 film consisted of acetone, benzene & turpentine, ingredients of paint thinner
"The Dip" rang no bells for me, and aside from the year, there's nothing with which to work. Heathers is from 1988, but I can recall only one poisoning, and it wasn't from paint thinner. I even decided that the "characters" were probably not human -- Little Shop of Horrors? Gremlins 2? -- but couldn't land on the correct response. (Which I've seen, but probably not since 1988.)
He just threw away 8K and a large lead on another really simple question. Sheesh. For somebldy as smart as he is, sometimes he comes off pretty stupid.
He missed the easiest of the three parts of the question. But then he went on a roll. The other guy was pretty good but Matt pulled away with the daily doubles. I nailed final jeopardy - that was one where either it quickly came to mind or it didn't. It was odd watching on ABC in NY with the questions read by the local newscasters.
Final Jeopardy from today (Wednesday). The category was Landmarks, and here was the clue.
96 miles in total during its 3-decade existence, the most well-known part of this was about the same length as an Olympic marathon
To me, this is not like the 1980s Movies clue above because you have something to work with even if you don't know the answer. I see two approaches here, a wrong one and a right one.
Wrong: What's a lengthy landmark that you might define in ancient terms?
Right: What's a lengthy landmark that existed for 3 decades?
I chose wrong, like the 2 challengers, and came up with the Appian Way.
I forgot to come post here but last week a friend of mine was on. She finished a respectable 3rd (got final Jeopardy right when the guy in 2nd place did not).
I'm guessing your friend played the episode that aired September 14. That was an interesting Final Jeopardy. Category was Scientific Etymology and the clue was
2 of the 3 men for whom armalcolite, a dark gray mineral discovered in 1969, is named
I momentarily stumbled on the "malco" part of that word, thinking of Malcolm X, even though he died in 1965 and the rest of the word didn't lend itself to two other names. Then I ignored the word and focused on the rest of the clue to land on the correct response. Not sure if I could have done all of that and written down my response in 30 seconds while standing on a soundstage, so congratulations to your friend.
Tonight was a close call. A young, bright contestant who was very fast on the button... it was really tight until Matt hit a daily double at 10,800 about a third into Double Jeopardy. He knew he had to go all in, and he did.
It was a small payday by his standards, but he lives to play another game. About 50-some-odd thousand away from a million dollars.