Mayim Bialik hosted the first season of Celebrity Jeopardy!, but she won’t be back for season two as an act of solidarity with the historic WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Instead, according to Variety, Ken Jennings will host the new season, which premieres on September 27th.
Jennings has previously been accused of crossing the picket line — and tossing Alex Trebek under the bus as his defense. In response to someone on Twitter saying that the former-Jeopardy! host would “turn over his grave” to see his successor hosting during a strike, Jennings shared a statement from Sony Pictures. “Jeopardy! has a long history with and tremendous respect for the WGA and our writers. We have always been careful to honor our WGA agreements and we would never air game material not created by WGA writers,” it reads. “However, just as we did, led by Alex Trebek, during the 2007-2008 strike, we will deliver first-run episodes again this fall.”
Jeopardy! will have a number of changes this upcoming season due to the strike, including recycled clues. One of the game show’s longest-running champs, James Holzhauer, is not a fan. “If you don’t have time to listen, here’s the executive summary of today’s announcement: 1:00-2:00: Jeopardy’s writers are invaluable and we couldn’t produce the show without them. 2:00-15:00: Here is how we will produce the upcoming season without them,” he tweeted.
Here’s a solution: new episodes of Jeopardy! should be replaced with “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “I Lost on Jeopardy” until the strike is resolved.
(Via Variety)
