[ Jeopardy! is not like other game shows. According to the WGA,
“Jeopardy is produced by a struck company...Anyone participating in
a Jeopardy production would be crossing a picket line comprised of
Jeopardy writers who wrote the clues.”]
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JEOPARDY! CONTESTANTS WEIGH A SECOND SHOT AT GLORY VERSUS CROSSING
THE PICKET LINE  
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Matt Patches
August 9, 2023
Polygon
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_ Jeopardy! is not like other game shows. According to the WGA,
“Jeopardy is produced by a struck company...Anyone participating in
a Jeopardy production would be crossing a picket line comprised of
Jeopardy writers who wrote the clues.” _

Jeopardy! set, Photo: Sony Pictures Museum

 

_Jeopardy!_ is not like other game shows
[[link removed]].
Players who pass the tests, nail the interviews, and receive the call
to take the stage to test their trivia knowledge have often waited
years for the opportunity — it is a dream come true. A second chance
is basically unheard of, save for the few who wind up on a Tournament
of Champions-qualifying winning streak.

But thanks to extraordinary circumstances, a second chance is exactly
what the show is offering to some former players: As of
now, _Jeopardy!_’s 40th season, set to premiere on Sept. 11, is
inviting select contestants from previous seasons to play in a new set
of games. The season will start with a Second Chance tournament, in
which players from the COVID-restricted season 37 who excelled but
didn’t win will return for another chance at glory. Later in the
season, a Champion’s Wild Card tournament will bring together champs
from seasons 37 and 38, along with the Second Chance winners, to face
off in an even bigger showdown.

As five_ _former_ Jeopardy!_ contestants who were offered spots in
these tournaments tell Polygon, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime
— again. It’s also an ethical nightmare.

“When I got a call gauging my interest in participating, my initial
reaction was pure shock, because I’d given up any fantasies about
being invited back,” one season 38 champion says. (All spoke on
condition of anonymity, so as not to affect their chances to appear
on _Jeopardy!_ in the future.) “But once that initial shock wore
off, it was replaced by the dread of having to make an impossible
decision.”

 

[WGA writers striking in front of Sony Pictures Studios in Culver
City, California, where episodes of Jeopardy! are taped.  Photo:
 Eric Thayer/Bloomberg  //  Polygon]
If Sony Pictures Entertainment, which produces _Jeopardy!_, goes
forward with its current plans for season 40, cameras will roll as
thousands of members of the Writers Guild of America remain on strike
against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers
[[link removed]] over
a lapsed labor contract. _Jeopardy!_ employs WGA writers to come up
with its snappy trivia clues, but for now, without newly written
answers and questions available, the show plans to use “a
combination of material that our WGA writers wrote before the strike,
which is still in the database, and material that is being redeployed
from multiple, multiple seasons of the show,”
said _Jeopardy!_ showrunner Michael Davies on this week’s episode
of the _Inside Jeopardy! _podcast
[[link removed]].
Davies also spoke about the writers’ importance to the show itself
and as part of the “family” of behind-the-scenes people who make
it. “There is something I have to say right at the outset, and that
is how much I admire and miss our writers,” he said. “They are
beloved and valued members of the _Jeopardy!_ team, just as they
value every other member of our team.”

_Jeopardy!_ producers have already reached out to certain contestants
from seasons 37 and 38 in order to book tape dates for the upcoming
tournaments. But how long Sony will need to rely on returning players
and old material is a huge question, for the show and the entire
industry; there is currently no end to the strike in sight.
A Deadline report earlier in August
[[link removed]] suggested
that the WGA and AMPTP were at a standstill over the mere idea of
returning to the bargaining table.

But according to the WGA, there is no ambiguity in what deciding to
appear on the game show would mean for a player’s relationship to
the striking workforce.

“_Jeopardy_ is produced by a struck company,” a WGA spokesperson
told Polygon via email. “Anyone participating in
a _Jeopardy_ production would be crossing a picket line comprised
of _Jeopardy_ writers who wrote the clues.”

For one former season 37 contestant, who wrote to Polygon over email,
the taping of her _Jeopardy!_ win stands out as “a completely
perfect day.” So when a contestant coordinator called her out of the
blue earlier this month to offer a tournament slot, a rush of emotion
came flooding back.

“The idea that I get to go back and do this again?” she says.
“And this time without the strict COVID regulations? Someone would
actually do my hair and makeup? I could take a picture standing next
to the host? And even better — I would be in a tournament?!? I’ve
heard such amazing stories of the tournament experience (win or lose)
and I was so excited to be a part of that. My brain was just reeling
at this new opportunity that I never thought I would have.”

Still, she politely declined — at least for now. While she was more
than happy to play in a tournament again, she would not participate as
long as the WGA strike “was unresolved.” The contestant
coordinator told her that she wasn’t the first person to come back
with that response.

“I am so angry at the show and Sony leadership for doing this,”
she says. “Calling with vague invitations on Thursday and then
announcing publicly on Monday what the plan was before telling the
invitees? Waiting to tape season 39 [Tournament of Champions] and any
possible season 39 Second Chance or Wild Card tournaments until the
strike is resolved… but somehow it’s okay to invite season 37/38
players?”

 

[Photo illustration: Will Joel/Polygon | Source image: Sony Pictures
Entertainment]
The other former champions speaking to Polygon about being offered
a _Jeopardy!_ reappearance express a similar unease over their
dreams being pitted against a belief in what the WGA is fighting for.
While the strike circumstances came up in at least one offer, in which
a contestant coordinator expressed solidarity with those on strike and
affirmed that no union writers crossed the picket line to create new
content, the caveats haven’t provided much comfort.

A season 38 player, who spent months preparing for what would turn out
to be a two-episode run on the series, notes that while participating
in season 40 may not constitute scabbing in the literal sense — he
wouldn’t be replacing the striking workers involved with the show
— his position as a dues-paying member of a different labor union
makes solidarity a priority for him. He won’t undermine the strike.

“I realize that there are other contracts at play among the other
crew members that make _Jeopardy!_ possible,” he says, “but
we’d still be charged with walking through a passionate group of
human beings fighting for their livelihoods in order to play a game.
Do I expect them to see my solid-colored business casual wear and
practice buzzer and go, ‘Oh, if it’s for _Jeopardy!_ it’s
cool?’ Of course not. And I wouldn’t want them to.”

“IT’S HONESTLY SOURING MY OPINION OF _JEOPARDY!_ FOR PUTTING US
IN THIS POSITION”

Two other season 38 champions offered spots in a season 40 tournament
say they feel fortunate to be in a comfortable enough financial
position so as not to feel the draw of the potential prize money. But
both know that’s not the case for every former contestant
that _Jeopardy!_ is asking to make an agonizing call. “I won’t
judge them if they accept,” says one of the champions, “but I’m
certainly judging the studio for putting us in this position.”

Still, there’s that tug of reliving the rush of play one more time.
“I feel like I’ll regret it forever if I decline what is likely my
one chance to go back on the show,” one former champion says. “But
I’ll also regret it forever if I accept but have to cross the picket
line to do it. It honestly makes me wish I’d never gotten the
invitation at all.”

While the _Jeopardy!_ champions Polygon spoke with all have strong
feelings about not crossing the picket line, a few are holding out
hope that the strike might be resolved in time for them to
participate. One of the season 38 players asked the contestant
coordinator to schedule his tape date “as late in the year as
possible, because it gives the studios enough time to meet the
writers’ demands.” He says he plans to check with his own
union’s leadership to “discuss all possible consequences or
ramifications to crossing the WGA picket line,” but adds that
if _Jeopardy!_ asked him to decide now, it would be a hard no.

As they mull the opportunity and hope for resolution, these
contestants all carry some level of disappointment in the producers of
their favorite show for even asking in the first place. One player
refers to it as a “betrayal.” Another says the offer felt like a
“gut-punch.” Everyone wanted to return to the _Jeopardy!_ stage,
but not like this.

“It’s honestly souring my opinion of _Jeopardy!_ for putting us
in this position, having to choose between supporting the strike and
going back on the show that many of us have loved our whole lives,”
says a season 38 champion. “I also think if I decline the
invitation, it will be easy for the production to find someone who’s
happy to replace me. It makes me wonder if it would be better to just
cross the picket line but donate my winnings, than for someone who
doesn’t care about the strike at all to take my place. I really
don’t know what the right thing is to do.”

Hours later, the contestant reached out to Polygon again to say she
had declined.

_[MATT PATCHES [[link removed]] is an
executive editor at Polygon. He has over 15 years of experience
reporting on movies and TV, and reviewing pop culture._

_Additional reporting by Samit Sarkar.]_

__

_Disclosure: Rank-and-file staffers at Polygon are members of the Vox
Media Union, which is affiliated with the Writers Guild of America,
East (WGAE). The Vox Media Union’s collective bargaining agreement
is separate from the Minimum Basic Agreement, the labor contract
between screenwriters and television and film producers. The current
labor dispute between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television
Producers and the Writers Guild of America (which consists of the WGAE
and its sister union, the Writers Guild of America West) does not
involve the newsroom unions that are affiliated with the WGAE._

* WGA
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* WGA Writers Strike
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* televison
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* Films
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* Hollywood studios
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* Hollywood Strikes
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* AI
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* artificial intelligence
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* royalties
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* streaming
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* Jeopardy
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