Last week, Mike Richards resigned from his position as Jeopardy!’s new host due to past scandals resurfacing. For the time being, Mayim Bialik will step in as the show’s temporary host.
As production is set to resume this week, Sony Pictures Television announced that Bialik is signed on 15 episodes in total. This could be subjected to an addition of more episodes or other guest hosts taking over. Further announcements will be made.
After previously guest-hosting during the show’s initial hunt for an anchor, Bialik was already roped into hosting prime-time episodes and any further spin-offs. The actor in good spirit has agreed to continue guest hosting.
Since Richards had already recorded a few of the episodes, it will continue to air for the sake of continuity and the participants involved.
Richards was forced to step down after his sexist and racist comments expressed multiple times during a podcast, along with lawsuits against him for discriminatory behavior against women in the office space came to light.
Many may make light of “cancel culture” and ask for a firm line drawn to understand which bygones can be bygones, but Jeopardy!’s recent events also point a finger at Sony executives, who were lousy during the whole process. As Matt Belloni puts it in his newsletter What I’m Hearing… A podcast that was so easily found by a reporter at The Ringer (who originally broke out the news), should’ve just as easily been found by Sony during their supposed vetting process.
Sony’s indecisiveness is continued in the fact that Richards still serves as Jeopardy!’s executive producer.
Despite claiming to have evaluated the guest hosts based on focus groups and ratings, they let the likes of Ken Jennings, Aaron Rogers, LeVar Burton and Savannah Gurthie slip through their hands. Now with Richard’s exist, Sony’s executives have another chance of doing it right.
Sources from the show have confirmed with CNN, that they do not want to have “an extended audition process” — which means all the guest stars are in the running. One name that has recently popped up (other than Burton and Rodgers) is Ken Jennings, the fan favorite with the longest winning streak on the show.
The ultimate decision is yet to come.
About Jeopardy!
Jeopardy! is an American game show hosted by Alex Trebek. Created by Merv Griffin, the show is a quiz competition in which the contestants are given clues (general knowledge) as answers and are asked to form a question as to their response.
Originally, the show aired on NBC on March 30, 1964. The version airing as of 2021 is produced by Sony Pictures Television first aired on September 10, 1984.
Source: CNN
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