Jeopardy! WILL be coming back in September, the show’s bosses have announced. But it’s not going ahead exactly as had been planned. And, controversially, the show will feature questions that have been used previously during its long history. This decision has not gone down well with Jeopardy! super-champ Amy Schneider who has announced that she will not be appearing on the show in the current climate.
After several recent champions vowed to boycott the upcoming Tournament of Champions in solidarity with the ongoing WGA strike, the show’s producers have said they “never had any intention” of running the contest “until the strike is resolved.”
“Our current plan is to go into a holding pattern of sorts, pushing back the Season 39 postseason to first produce original episodes featuring the best of our WGA written material,” a Jeopardy! spokesperson said in a statement. “Next month, we will share more news about exciting plans and enhancements to the contestant experience for this upcoming season and beyond.”
The statement also revealed that nobody from Season 39 had been contacted for the postseason specials, including the Tournament of Champions, which have all been put on the back burner.
Referring to the TOC specifically, the spokesperson said it “represents the pinnacle of our competition, and it should feature our strongest players playing our toughest original material.”
Last week, a number of Season 39 champions, including Ray LaLonde, Cris Pannullo, and Hannah Wilson, announced they would not participate in the TOC so long as the WGA strike was ongoing.
“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,” the statement added.
The statement revealed that the show will go into a “holding pattern,” postponing the postseason contests and instead producing new episodes for Season 40 with WGA material written before the strikes.
“Just as we did, led by Alex Trebek, during the 2007-2008 strike, we will deliver first-run episodes again this fall to more than 200 affiliate stations nationwide,” the spokesperson explained. “Everyone at Jeopardy! hopes that the guilds and the AMPTP can reach a fair resolution quickly.”
Filming is currently scheduled to begin on August 5; more details are expected to be announced next month.
The 2022 Tournament of Champions winner Amy Schneider took to Twitter on Tuesday (July 25) night to share her thoughts on the show’s plans to continue with previously written material.
“Disappointed to hear that Jeopardy is considering this course of action,” she wrote. “For what it’s worth, I, too, will not be participating in any Jeopardy productions that don’t use new clues written by their amazing, unionized writers under a fair, collectively bargained contract.”
Disappointed to hear that Jeopardy is considering this course of action. For what it’s worth, I, too, will not be participating in any Jeopardy productions that don’t use new clues written by their amazing, unionized writers under a fair, collectively bargained contract https://t.co/yBiqd1k1oa
— Amy Schneider (@Jeopardamy) July 25, 2023
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