‘Jeopardy!’: Will You Be Watching Season 40 With All the Changes? (POLL)

Meredith Jacobs September 7, 2023, 2:30 pm

Jeopardy! Season 40 kicks off on Monday, September 11, but like the rest of Hollywood is affected by the ongoing writers (and actors) strikes, meaning there will be quite a few changes. So, will everyone be watching as usual?

The game show returns with Ken Jennings as its host — he closed out Season 39 after Mayim Bialik stepped away out of solidarity with the writers, before the actors went on strike — but with no new contestants and questions written before the strikes.

Instead, starting on September 11 is a Second Chance Tournament with players who appeared in Season 37. (The first week’s starting matchups are as follows: operations manager Jill Tucker, scriptwriter Gabriel Ostler, and accountant Derek Allen; assistant editor Cody Lawrence, magnetics engineer David Maybury, and baker Susan Schulman; and hardware engineer Hari Parameswaran, writer Donna Vorreyer, and aerospace engineer Matt Wierman. The winners will then face off.)

The winners of that tournament will then take on champions from Season 38 in Champions Wild Card.

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The 2023 Tournament of Champions will not take place until after the strikes end; some Season 39 champions have said they will not participate until that time.

“I believe, principally 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 or as we’ll talk about a combination of non-original material and material that was written pre-strike,” Jeopardy! showrunner Michael Davies explained during an August episode of the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. “And 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.”

But will viewers tune in for that? Will they watch these tournaments and players from previous seasons facing questions they’ve seen before — and can find online — or were written before the strike? And if not, will it be out of solidarity with the strikers or because they’d rather see only new contestants and questions? Some fans aren’t planning to tune in with the changes, as you can see in the tweets below.

I will not be watching #jeopardy until the writer's strike is resolved. #solidaritywithwriters

— HSStevens (@NHSuz) August 11, 2023

It’s a bummer that the new season of #Jeopardy is moving forward without their writers. Current questions are so important for the contestants and progression of the show… and I need to shout new things at my tv. #WGAStrike

— peggythrill (@peggythrill) September 2, 2023

What is… getting my daily Jeopardy fix from old episodes on Pluto because I won't watch a single second of the new season until the strikes are over and writers are fairly paid?#Jeopardy #PayYourWriters #WGA https://t.co/qya3J45emE

— Kris Williamson (@NotebookEmpress) August 9, 2023

But we want to know: Will you be watching the new season with the previous players and no new material, or will you be waiting until the strikes are over and normal play resumes? Let us know in the poll and comments below.

Jeopardy!, Season 40 Premiere, Monday, September 11, Check your local listings