James Holzhauer Dings ‘Jeopardy!’ Producers After Announcing Season 40 Would Continue Amid Writers Strike

Armando Tinoco
·3 min read
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James Holzhauer is taking aim at Jeopardy! producers after they announced that Season 40 of the show would continue amid the writers strike.

The Jeopardy! champion took to social media to call out producers of the game show after executive producer Michael Davies revealed on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast that the new season would recycle questions and contestants from the past.

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“If you don’t have time to listen, here’s the executive summary of today’s announcement,” Holzhauer posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The game show winner then cited the seemingly opposing comments from Davies, adding, “1:00-2:00: Jeopardy’s writers are invaluable and we couldn’t produce the show without them. 2:00-15:00: Here is how we will produce the upcoming season without them.”

During the latest episode of Inside Jeopardy!, Davies said at the top of the podcast that he admired and missed the writers of the show.

“They are beloved and valued members of the Jeopardy! team, just as they value every other member of our team,” he said before listing all the departments within the show. “This really is a family who make this show who’ve been through a lot together over the last few years. And just the respect that everybody holds for each other is something remarkable about this program. And I think it comes across on air.”

After the first couple of minutes of acknowledging the writers like Holzhauer on his social media post, Davies then goes on to explain how Season 40 will move forward amid the writers strike.

Davies said that Season 40’s “original plan” was to “extend the postseason” which would include various tournaments that would’ve lasted about 15-16 weeks.

“The entire staff is committed to producing the best episodes we possibly can,” the EP said. “But I understand that the best episodes that are possible, are episodes that feature our writers writing original material, and the very best contestants, as we’ve always put on the air playing that original material.”

Davies said he realized that the postseason with Tournament of Champions would have to be postponed until the writers returned “and be able to write original material that the tournament deserves.”

“So we decided that really we needed to invite back and give a second chance in general to players who probably thought that their chance to come back and play on the Alex Trebek Stage had gone forever. So we’re going to open the season with a second chance tournament for players from Season 37, who lost their initial game, and winners from that will advance to a Season 37 and Season 38 champions wildcard,” Davies said of Season 40.

The producer said that it would all culminate in a Tournament of Champions. Another change for the new season is that the new pricing for second and third place would go into effect as of the new season meaning that second place would win $3,000 and third place would get $2,000.

“Because I have no idea of the timing of when this ends when all of this can happen,” Davies added. “It’s tough for me right now to forecast what’s going to happen with the Season 40 postseason, that will take place during Season 41. I have been adamant that I want to do this at the same time. Every year. I got one year of doing that already got derailed. So we will attempt to get back on track. That is my plan. That is my promise.”

Teasing the first part of Season 40, Davies said, “For the Season 37 and Season 38 contestants, the material that we’re going to be using is 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.” Davies noted that Celebrity Jeopardy! is a different situation as everything had already been written before the strike.

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