Mayim Bialik & Ken Jennings to Host ‘Jeopardy!’ Through the End of 2021

Meredith Jacobs September 16, 2021, 12:12 pm

Mayim Bialik, Ken Jennings in Jeopardy — Jeopardy!, Inc.

It doesn’t sound like we’re going to have a permanent Jeopardy! host for a while, following Mike Richards’ brief stint and subsequent exit from the gig.

Instead, two established guest hosts will be splitting the duties for the rest of 2021: Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings. Bialik will host several weeks of episodes beginning Monday, September 20 and airing through November 5. Then, she and Jennings will trade off, depending on their schedules. This comes after Bialik was also announced as the host for primetime specials and spinoffs.

Richards was named as the permanent host and taped a week’s worth of episodes before his exit following past controversial statements and lawsuits being uncovered. (His episodes began airing on Monday, September 13.) It was less than two weeks after it was announced he was out as host that his departure as executive producer on both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune came.

“We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at Jeopardy! it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks,” Suzanne Prete, Sony Pictures Television’s EVP of Business and Strategy for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, said in a letter to the staff at the time. “That clearly has not happened.”

During the first search for a new permanent host following Alex Trebek’s passing, Jeopardy! featured several guest hosts including Bialik, Jennings, Richards, Katie Couric, Dr. Mehmet Oz, footballer Aaron Rodgers, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Bill Whitaker, Savannah Guthrie, Buzzy Cohen, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts, LeVar Burton, David Faber, and Joe Buck.