A recent Jeopardy! episode had a rather inauspicious start with the contestants’ final scores showing up at the start. How it all came about is something that executive producer Michael Davies is figuring out. Davies had a lot to say about what happened at the start of the specific episode. It featured the finalists of the Jeopardy! High School Reunion Tournament. Former teenage contestants Jackson Jones, Justin Bolsen, and Maya Wright advanced to the finals. They were taking their aim for a $100,000 prize. But, as host Mayim Bialik introduced the first part of a two-day total-point matchup, the camera shows the players. Yeah, it also shows their final scores on their podium screens.
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“Right off the bat, apologies to the entire audience, we totally blew it at the top of the show,” Davies said on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. “We made a horrible error, where we revealed the final scores at the end in the opening cutaway shot during Mayim’s monologue. It’s a series of errors that it’s somehow remarkable that they all happened.”
‘Jeopardy!’ Executive Producer Michael Davies Spoke Out About The Error On The Show
Davies had more to say about the error made on Jeopardy! “Of course, it should be standard procedure — and it is supposed to be standard procedure — that we take the scores on the podiums back to the original level, but it didn’t happen. This was then not caught in [post-production], and it was not caught in the final [quality control]. There are so many elements that should check this. We have now put in place a new series of protocols that will prevent this from happening again.
“I think one thing I’d also say is that every part of the Jeopardy process — and this is a good thing for Jeopardy!, as we grow, as we do Masters, as we take on these tournaments, as we’ve done Celebrity this year, as we’re doing all these new versions — there is some pressure on this production,” Davies said. “We’re making more episodes, people are working more hours and so that does lead to mistakes. But still no excuse for this, this was too basic, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
For the most part, Jeopardy! does a good job of making sure that errors do not happen. They run a pretty tight ship over there. And Davies was quick to apologize for making the mistake on the show. It should be noted that it was not Bialik’s fault that the scores were shown at the beginning. She simply was doing her job as host to get the show going.