You’ve heard some of the legendary stories about celebrities who did well when Jeopardy! did celebrity tournaments: Andy Richter, for instance, did fantastic. You also hear of the ones who crashed and burned, like Wolf Blitzer. For the first time, Celebrity Jeopardy! is in primetime, with 27 celebs set to either be Andy Richter or be Wolf Blitzer.
CELEBRITY JEOPARDY!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We hear the voice of Johnny Gilbert, still as strong as ever at 94, announcing the first contestants in the first ever primetime Celebrity Jeopardy! tournament.
The Gist: Yes, this iteration of Jeopardy! has had celebrity tournaments before, but never in primetime. And with primetime comes hourlong (with commercials) episodes, so producer Michael Davies and his crack staff have included a new twist to the game: Triple Jeopardy!
Mayim Bialik hosts this tournament, which will consist of 27 celebrities playing in 9 quarterfinal matches, leading to 3 semifinal matches, then one final match where they can win $1 million for their charities
The first celebrities up are Andy Richter, who has won celebrity Jeopardy in syndication, but he tells Bialik that he had to miss the semifinals because he was doing Conan O’Brien’s theater tour after Conan lost The Tonight Show; SNL’s Ego Nwodim, who got a biology degree before going into comedy; and Shang-Chi‘s Simu Liu, who spent the entire game marveling at Richter’s ability to answer questions. Other celebrities in the first round will be: Reggie Watts, Constance Wu, Iliza Shlesinger, Ray Romano, Aisha Tyler, Patton Oswalt, Michael Cera, B.J. Novak, Candace Parker, Jalen Rose, Ike Barinholtz and Eddie Huang.
And what is Triple Jeopardy!? Well, it’s basically a third round: The dollar values will range from $100-$500 in the first round, $200-$1000 in the second round, and $300-$1500 in the third round. Oh, and Triple Jeopardy! will have three Daily Doubles. That’s about it. Hey, it’s Jeopardy!. Did you think they were going to have a lightning round?
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Celebrity Jeopardy! is basically the same Jeopardy! you’ve known for almost 40 years, except with celebrities and a third round of questions.
Our Take: If this is the first time you’re watching Jeopardy! since Alex Trebek’s death two years ago, it may be jarring to you to see Bialik at the lectern for this celebrity tournament. But she’s been hosting the show for a couple of years now; she and Ken Jennings were named the show’s permanent hosts this past summer after splitting duties last season in the wake of the one-week Mike Richards disaster.
Is she as smooth as Trebek was? No, and we don’t expect her to be; no one can copy Trebek’s particular air of confidence and cool. Every time we watch Bialik host, though, we’re surprised at how stiff and scripted she can be, and it’s no different here. We were a little surprised at how ill at ease she seemed bantering with “her kind”, so to speak, i.e. other actors and celebrities.
That being said, she certainly has the experience now to keep the show moving and do a reasonably good job. She fumbled things a time or two, like when she misidentified who had control of the board going into a commercial break, but those are minor in the grand scheme of things.
And if you’ve ever seen a celebrity Jeopardy! episode you know how it goes: The celebs banter, some do well and others struggle. There’s some fluff to fill out the 42-minute runtime, like two rounds of interviews and Gilbert-read trivia questions going into and coming out of commercial breaks. The questions are certainly less challenging than during a regular round of the show, mainly because the producers want the celebs to win money for their charities. But it’s still entertaining to watch both the celebs like Richter who seem to have things figured out and ones like Liu, who seem to be a bit overwhelmed by the experience — though Liu acquits himself a lot better than he realizes.
Sex and Skin: You expect sex and skin on Jeopardy!?
Parting Shot: The winner after Final Jeopardy! goes to the next round, and the show donated $30,000 to the charities of the 2nd and 3rd place contestants.
Most Pilot-y Line: We thought that the show was going to suffer from poor timing when they had a category called “Queen Elizabeth II,” but it turns out that the episode was recorded after her death on September 8. That’s a pretty quick turnaround.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Celebrity Jeopardy! doesn’t reinvent the wheel here. It moves a bit slower than a typical non-celebrity episode, but it’s still the same show that people have loved for decades.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.