Ken Jennings dramatically halted Tuesday night’s Jeopardy! to make four corrections to the players’ scores
Jeopardy! viewers were left with whiplash after Ken Jennings dramatically halted Tuesday night’s game to make four corrections to the players’ scores in what has been branded the most ‘chaotic’ episode to date.
Halfway through the instalment, the 50-year-old host stopped dead in his tracks to tell contestants Kathy Davis, Anna Paone, and Isaac Hirsch that the judges had U-turned on multiple answers.
As a result of the last-minute changes, Isaac’s prize pot significantly jumped from $8,600 to $15,000, while Kathy’s dropped from $600 to $200.
Addressing the competitors, Ken said: ‘I need to update the scores a bit because our judges have notified me of some changes.
‘Kathy, when you corrected your response from “corroborate” to “corroborated,” that was no longer an 11-letter word. We need to take the second response. So, you will lose $1,600 there.
Viewers at home have branded the latest instalment the most ‘chaotic’ episode to date
‘Isaac, the good news is we have ruled we can accept “char-grilled” instead of “char-broiled,” so, you get back $2,400 there.’
He continued: ‘In that case, Kathy never would have guessed “flame-broiled,” so she gets back $1,200.
‘And finally, last but not least, there is a thing called a magic triangle, it turns out, and that’s a $4,000 swing for you, Isaac.
‘So, these scores as you see them are correct.’
Viewers at home couldn’t believe the volume of reversals, branding them ‘wild’ and outright ‘insane.’
One Reddit user said they couldn’t ‘recall seeing that many scoring corrections in a game,’ prompting another to respond: ‘That was an insane reversal. The whole game felt very chaotic.’
Over on X, one fan of the show said: ‘That Jeopardy four score correction run was wild. How did the judges miss that many responses? I’ve never seen anything like it!’
Another posted: ‘Those scoring changes were wild on jeopardy tonight. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that big of swing before.’
Ken, 50, paused the game and told the players: ‘I need to update the scores a bit because our judges have notified me of some changes’
Isaac’s prize pot jumped from $8,600 to $15,000 as a result of the last minute changes
‘What an insane score update,’ a third observed, while a fourth simply wrote: ‘Good grief, judges.’
Some were left fuming at the reversals, with one writing: ‘Rule change that would GREATLY improve #Jeopardy: Once you’ve been ruled correct, the ruling is final.
‘Only incorrectly deemed wrong answers should change scores.’
At the end of the episode, it was revealed that Isaac had won Final Jeopardy! with $19,601 in his prize pot.
Viewers were left with whiplash after Ken’s reversals, stating they’d never seen anything like it
He is now the five-day reigning champion and has an impressive total of $120,186.
It’s fair to say Jeopardy! rulings have irked fans of late.
Just last week, Ken enraged viewers after he refused to accept an answer because it had been pluralized.
He sparked controversy when he presented a clue from the ‘Waterfalls’ category, asking: ‘Yosemite fall with a wispy ribbon of water that flutters in the air like a diaphanous cloth bears the name of this marital wear.’
At the time, one player buzzed in with: ‘What is Bridalveil Falls?’
But Ken refused to accept the answer because the player had added an ‘s’ to the word ‘fall.’
Defending his verdict, Ken said: ‘No, I’m sorry. It’s actually “Bridalveil Fall,” so we couldn’t take that. It is, “What is a Bridalveil?”‘