Jeopardy season 40 will recycle clues and contestants amid WGA strike

Jeopardy has finally announced its season 40 game plan.

The trivia show will move forward with its fall season despite the Writers Guild of America strike, but with recycled clues and contestants.

Showrunner Michael Davies shared the news on the latest episode of the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, explaining the plan to 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."

Representatives for Jeopardy declined to comment further.

Celebrity Jeopardy is also set to return in September, but with completely original material that Davies said was completed before the WGA went on strike. As for Jeopardy Masters, a spring 2024 return date is expected.

Jeopardy Productions, Inc. Ken Jennings hosting 'Jeopardy'

Another notable development sees producers responding to the growing backlash to Jeopardy's long-standing policy of not paying travel expenses for non-championship players.

"A major announcement we can make today is that we are increasing the second and third place prize amounts by $1,000 each," Davies said. Now, second place winners will receive $3,000 and third place winners will receive $2,000.

"We understand that post-COVID, travel costs have increased," Davies continued. "We understand how complicated funding a trip to Jeopardy is for many contestants within our community, and we think this is way about time that we did this."

To kick off season 40, Jeopardy will 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.

"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," Davies said.

Season 40 of Jeopardy is set to premiere on Sept. 11, 2023.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content:

• Jeopardy's Tournament of Champions won't take place until WGA strike is resolved

• Ken Jennings to host Jeopardy as Mayim Bialik leaves early in solidarity with striking writers

• Jeopardy fans upset after a spelling mistake ends Ben Chan's nine-day winning streak