Mayim Bialik will not be hosting Season 2 of “Celebrity Jeopardy!” as she continues to support the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Variety has learned from sources.
On Monday, ABC issued a press release with changes to their fall schedule, noting that Ken Jennings will host the new season of “Celebrity Jeopardy!,” which premieres Sept. 27 at 8 p.m. ET.
ABC did not respond to Variety’s request for comment.
“Jeopardy!” showrunner Michael Davies revealed earlier this month that material for the star-studded spinoff series’ second season was completed before the WGA went on strike, so the upcoming season will feature completely original material. While Bialik and Jennings split hosting duties on “Jeopardy!,” the former was the sole host for Season 1 of “Celebrity Jeopardy!,” featuring such guests as Simu Liu, Andy Richter, Aisha Tyler, Michael Cera and more.
Back in May, Variety spoke to “Jeopardy!” writers Michele Loud, Jim Rhine and Billy Wisse on the picket line during the fourth day of the WGA strike.
“Our words are on the screen every night,” Loud said. “There is no ‘Jeopardy’ without writers. Without us it’s just an empty blue screen.”
Davies explained on the “Jeopardy!” podcast “Inside Jeopardy!” how the trivia series would proceed with its next season amid the WGA strike.
“We’re going to open the season with a second chance tournament for players from Season 37 who lost their initial game. Winners from that will advance to a Season 37 and Season 38 Champions Wildcard,” he said, adding that questions on these second chance episodes would be “a combination of material that our WGA writers wrote before the strike, which is still in the database, and material that has been re-deployed from multiple multiple seasons of the show.”
Mayim had about as much personality and gravitas in that role as a half-sucked jolly rancher. Really odd timing and added weird and unhelpful bits of information to the end of a player’s question.
She really is terrible. Watching some of the old reruns with Trebek on Pluto and he really was the best.
That she would refuse to host due to an ongoing strike is clearly indicative of personality and backbone. It’s clear that those lacking both are any who would use this as an opportunity to further enrich themselves and advance their careers. That would in this case be the producers and Ken Jennings.
I dont think that’s fair. It’s complicated… As far as we know, Bialik is part of the striking union and Jennings is not. Strikes like this have very specific contractual rights and processes associated with them, they’re not free-form protests (as much as I might like them to be).
I’m disappointed in whoever is responsible for Jeopardy staying on air, but we don’t have enough information to know who that is.
Edit: I failed to mention that I agree with your core point (I think) that the Mayim-bashing trend is frustrating and unnecessary.