Who Is Hosting ‘Jeopardy!’ Season 40? Game Show Promises Big Changes to Classic Format
After months of confusion and uncertainty, Jeopardy! is set to return to ABC with season 40 on September 11. Viewers have been wondering who nabbed the hosting position on the game show in light of several big changes being made on set.
Who Is Hosting ‘Jeopardy!’ Season 40?
Former champion Ken Jennings will be the sole host of Jeopardy! season 40. Unlike the season prior, he will not be splitting hosting duties with Mayim Bialik. Ken is also slated to host season 2 of Celebrity Jeopardy!, which will premiere on September 27.
What Happened to Mayim Bialik?
After the death of host Alex Trebek in 2020, Ken and Mayim were announced as the official hosts of Jeopardy! and its spinoff shows. Fans got used to seeing the pair switch on and off as they shared duties throughout the franchise.
“It’s a very hard job, and Alex made it look easy,” Ken told The New Yorker of the role in June. “So, it’s kind of a no-win thing — the only other person we’ve seen do it looked incredibly confident and graceful for 37 years, and we all loved him.”
In May, Mayim walked off the set of Jeopardy! to stand in solidarity with the writers on the picket lines for the WGA strike. In her absence, Ken stepped in to finish filming the final episodes of season 39.
In the months that followed, several former Jeopardy! champions, including Ray Lalonde and Ben Chen, took to Reddit to announce they would not be participating in any Tournament of Champions season filmed during the writer’s strike.
“As a supporter of the trade union movement, a union member's son and a proud union member myself, I have informed the show's producers that if the strike remains unresolved, I will not cross a picket line to play in the Tournament of Champions,” Ray wrote on Reddit in July.
More Major Changes Are Happening on ‘Jeopardy!’ Season 40
Season 40 began filming on August 15. While the beloved show is coming back, the format will certainly look a bit different this time around due to the WGA strike.
The new season is slated to run as a Second Chance Tournament for contestants who previously competed during season 37 of the show. No new players will be introduced to the audience or competing in the tournament.
In addition to bringing back players from season 37, the show will be recycling questions from the past and using questions that were written before the WGA strike during the tournament.