JEOPARDY! fans are blaming the writers for ‘destroying’ the game with a ‘lazy’ category that left all three players stumped.
The viewers fired off that the notorious category, which has become a repeated offender during Jeopardy! games, is just plain “bad TV” as they beg producers to retire it for good.
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On Monday’s game, returning champion Kara Peruccio was looking to increase her one-day winning streak earnings of $12,400.
The college professor from Bangor, Maine went up against Rachel Hall, a data analyst from Washington, D.C. and Andrew Jones, a graduate student from Queens, New York.
The game was already off to a rough start when Kara found the first Daily Double – but got it wrong and lost $1,000 right off the bat.
She was able to make up for her error, though, and gained $3,200 by the Double Jeopardy! round.
Andrew wasn’t far behind in second place with $2,400, while Rachel was in a distant third with $400.
Host Ken Jennings then introduced the Double Jeopardy! categories, which included: ANCIENT PERSIA, IT AIN’T SHAKESPEARE, SUBURBAN LEGEND, WE’VE GOT RIGHTS, MOVIE & SONG, SAME TITLE and finally, the controversial JEOPORTMANTEAU!
Jeoportmanteau! is a recurring category that has been featured on the famous trivia show for years.
The category’s name is a mixture of the words portmanteau and Jeopardy.
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The show is looking for responses that are portmanteaus constructed by fitting two words together, blending the sounds, and combining the meanings of two words.
Rachel was first to attempt taking a stab at Jeoportmanteau! but her choosing the category led to a triple stumper.
She attempted to go for the $800 clue in the category, but it once again led to a triple stumper – resulting in Rachel pivoting and choosing another route.
Once the trio of players completed the round, they missed all five of the potential Jeoportmanteau! clues – leaving fans furious and blaming the writers.
“We need to retire Jeoportmanteau for good, it’s just plain stupid and lazy,” one critic said.
“I can say without shame that Jeoportmanteau was even destroying us all in the green room,” another who was present on set wrote.
“When the contestants go 0-for-5, the blame can’t be put on them. It’s on the writers for trying to be overly cute and clever,” a third scolded.
“Even apart from Jeoportmanteau, this was a rough game. A lot of unforced errors and surprising triple stumpers in this one,” another insisted.
Jeopardy! Contestant Rules
Passing Jeopardy!’s online Anytime Test is hard enough, but there are also many rules players must follow once they make it to the stage:
- The returning champion is always at the leftmost podium and keeps playing until they lose.
- Contestants don’t have to say “who is” or “what is” in the first round but must do so in Double Jeopardy! and Final Jeopardy.
- Contestants can change their responses as long as Ken Jennings or the judges haven’t made a ruling.
- The minimum wager for a Daily Double is $5. The minimum wager for Final Jeopardy! is $0.
- Written responses in Final Jeopardy! do not have to be spelled correctly, but they must be phonetically correct (the judges decide this).
- If there’s a tie after Final Jeopardy, the tied players enter a bonus clue shootout, and whoever buzzes in first correctly wins.
- If all three contestants wager everything in Final Jeopardy! and are incorrect, leaving them with $0, there will be no returning champion (it’s happened before—six times).
Heading into the Final Jeopardy! round, Kara squashed her huge lead she had the rest of the game and fell to third place.
Rachel and Andrew were tied with $5,600 each while Kara had just $400.
Ken, 50, then introduced the last category as Texas Technology, with the clue being: “Just 27 in 1992, he’s still the youngest-ever C.E.O. of a company when it entered the Fortune 500.”
Everyone was incorrect on Final Jeopardy!, with the correct answer being “Who is Dell?” making the game’s winner determined by the wagering strategy.
While Kara was hoping both opponents would bet everything and miss, giving her a second win, no such luck was found as Andrew bet $0.
He ended up winning the game with $5,600 while Rachel had $500 and Kara was just behind her with $400.
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