‘Jeopardy’ champion James Holzhauer criticizes plan to continue without writers

I’ll take crossing the picket line for $300.

What is… hypocritical in the utmost?

According to Jeopardy champion James Holzhauer, it’s the game show’s plan to continue with season 40 in the midst of the ongoing writers’ strike. On Monday, the show announced their plan to go on with their fall season using recycled clues and contestants.

But Holzhauer doesn’t agree with this plan, as laid out by showrunner Michael Davies on the Inside Jeopardy podcast. The former champion shared the link to the podcast episode on social media.

“If you don’t have time to listen, here’s the executive summary of today’s announcement: 1:00-2:00: Jeopardy’s writers are invaluable and we couldn’t produce the show without them,” Holzhauer wrote. “2:00-15:00: Here is how we will produce the upcoming season without them.”

Though Holzhauer doesn’t outright speak out against the announcement, by juxtaposing the sentiments of the writers’ value to the show with the plan to forge ahead without them, he called out the hyprocrisy of the decision.

Davies explained on the podcast that season 40 will move forward with “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 seasons of the show.”

He added that the decision to bring back players stemmed from a belief that “it would not be fair to have new contestants making their first appearance on the Alex Trebek Stage, doing it with non-original material.”

Premiering on Sept. 11, Jeopardy! will first invite back contestants from season 37 who lost their initial game. Following that Second Chance Tournament, winners will advance to a Champions Wildcard made up of contestants from seasons 37 and 38.

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