Jeopardy! fans dub Season 40 ‘the worst ever’ as biggest faults from clue mistakes to constant tournaments are revealed

JEOPARDY! Season 40 has been dubbed the worst in the game show’s history by viewers.

Clue mistakes, repetitive tournaments, and head-scratching rule changes have all contributed to fans’ dissatisfaction with the latest season of Jeopardy!

Jeopardy! Season 40 was called the worst in the game show’s history by fansCredit: ABC

Clue mistakes, repetitive tournaments, and rule changes contributed to viewer dissatisfaction with Jeopardy!Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment
The Season 40 finale aired on Friday, July 26.

Jeopardy! is currently on a six-week hiatus before the Season 41 premiere.

New episodes and returning champ Rachel Bradley, who won the last episode, will be back after the summer break. But in the meantime, here are all the faults that turned longtime fans against the long-running series last season.

CLUELESS

Jeopardy! felt the heat this last season after fans called out the mistake on social media, an irrefutably inaccurate clue about units of temperature.

Adriana, who’d win her seventh game during the episode, faced Shira Gluck and Benjamin Nelson.

The then-champ selected the $600 “One Letter Says It All” clue in the Jeopardy! round.

Adriana was deemed right after correctly responding to an inaccurate clue presented by Jeopardy!Credit: ABC

The answer, Kelvin, isn’t measured in degrees and instead has a unique unit of measurement called KelvinsCredit: ABC
Host Ken Jennings, 50, read, “50 degrees F. equals 283.15 degrees this.”

Adriana was ruled correct with the response of, “K.”

Ken assured, “Correct, for Kelvin.”

However, viewers took to social media saying the show was incorrect, Kelvin isn’t measured in degrees but has a unique unit of measurement called kelvins.

Jeopardy! fans debate ‘unclear’ show rule about last name responses and call out ‘unfair’ pattern from judges
“Kelvin is not measured in degrees! It is measured as just Kelvins, as it is not referencing a standard like Celsius or Fahrenheit,” one fan pointed out on Reddit.

Adriana replied to the Redditor, saying she made a joke to this effect on-stage that was cut in post.

“Ha, I added a quip about that very detail after answering ‘Kelvin’ aloud,” she wrote back.

An X, formally Twitter, user roared, “Error: Kelvin (K) is an absolute temperature scale, so the temperatures there are not ‘degrees’ like Fahrenheit (°F) and Celsius (°C). ’50 degrees F equals 283.15 this’ would be the correct clue.”

J-Archive, the go-to Jeopardy! resource which chronicles every clue in the game’s history, also agreed it was wrong.

The website slapped a rare “erratum” under the clue to note the show’s mistake, writing, “[ERRATUM: Kelvin is a base unit, and is not measured in degrees.]”

INCONSISTENT RULING

Davey Morrison was ruled incorrect after accidentally making the final word of his answer pluralCredit: Jeopardy!

Davey responded, ‘What is No Country for Old Hens’ instead of ‘Old Hen’Credit: Jeopardy!
Last week, fans were left with ruffled feathers over a strict, if not debatable, ruling.

The Double Jeopardy! round clue for $2000 and in the category “Novel Change a Letter” read, “Cormac McCarthy’s saga of an aged female chicken caught up in a world of drugs & killers.”

Eventual winner Davey Morrison rang in and replied, “What is No Country for Old Hens.”

Ken swiftly ruled, “No,” right as Davey corrected the final word to “Hen.”

Davey looked frustrated as then-three-day champ Neilesh got the $2000 clue instead by repeating Davey’s answer of “No Country for Old Hen.”

Jeopardy! rules stipulate that once a host rules a player is incorrect, they can’t change their response.

That said, fans discussed the ruling, some saying Davey should have been given it and that the judges have gotten more strict.

“The contestant who answered “No Country for Old Hens” and changed it to “hen” was struck down even though he corrected his answer,” one viewer complained on Facebook.

“Not too long ago, a contestant gave a correct answer but then added an s to the word and was struck down because he changed his answer to the wrong one,” they continued.

The fan added, “Which way is it? They can’t have it both ways. Frustrating.”

“They don’t seem to be consistent!” another fumed.

NO TLC

Jeopardy! fans claimed Kelly Proulx was robbed after an absurd rulingCredit: ABC

Kelly answered, ‘What is Bridalveil Falls?’ when ‘What is a Bridalveil?’ is what the judges were looking forCredit: ABC
Recently, Jeopardy! and host Ken received negative feedback from fans over a harsh ruling that some called “positively disgusting.”

Ken and the judges refused to accept the then-champ’s answer because it was pluralized.

Drama ensued during the last clue of Double Jeopardy!, which was in the category “Waterfalls.”

The $2000 clue was, “A Yosemite fall with a wispy ribbon of water that flutters in the air like a diaphanous cloth bears the name of this marital wear.”

Returning champ Kelly Proulx, a communications director from Billerica, Massachusetts, buzzed in with, “What is Bridalveil Falls?”

Unfortunately, she was off by an “s,” and was ruled incorrect.

“No, I’m sorry,” Ken said. “It’s actually Bridalveil Fall, so we couldn’t take that. It is, ‘What is a Bridalveil?’”

Kelly looked distraught, and her opponent, Isaac Hirsch, could be seen staring at the camera in surprise.

That clue was especially tricky because many Yosemite sites, including Yosemite Falls, Wapama Falls, and Carlon Falls, have the appended “S.”

In addition, she added an “S” to the word “fall,” which wasn’t part of the desired response.

Viewers rushed to social media to discuss the ruling, with many feeling that it was unnecessarily harsh.

“Wow, Kelly was robbed. That ruling on Bridal Veil Fall/ Falls was ridiculous,” one Redditor wrote. “Adding the S seems to fall firmly in ‘yea, we’ll take that’ territory.”

“Yeesh, that’s a brutal call on the last clue,” another user wrote.

“That ruling was garbage,” a third bluntly wrote.

TORTOUREOUS TOURNAMENTS

Jeopardy! fans pointed out a flaw Invitational Tournament’s productionCredit: Jeopardy!

Casual fans weren’t made aware that trivia expert Victoria Groce was a one-time Jeopardy! winner before she entered the tournamentCredit: Jeopardy!
Many Jeopardy! fans were pleased with the buzzworthy Invitational Tournament, but some viewers noticed a flaw in its production.

Victoria Groce of The Chase won the brand-new event against legends Amy Schneider and Andrew He.

Victoria defeated 40-time champion and 2022 ToC winner Amy and 2022 ToC runner-up Andrew in the thrilling JIT finals.

Her prize was $100,000, and she would also win a slot in Jeopardy! Masters Season 2.

Fans rejoiced as the trivia star, who had only won a single game on Jeopardy! in 2005, emerged atop the 27 game show luminaries who competed.

However, some Redditors voiced their discontent after the Invitational, highlighting that casual viewers might not have been aware of Victoria’s previous lone win.

In fact, none of the iconic players got introductions detailing their past successes, which ranged from past Tournament of Champions wins to College Championships to inventing the Forrest Bounce.

“I thought JIT wasn’t very well produced,” one Reddit user complained.

They continued, “Some of the players are legendary veterans of the game and deserved a cool montage sequence as their intros captured some of their accomplishments and accolades.”

Another person agreed, “As a casual fan, I was unfamiliar with most of them (including Victoria), but many were noteworthy for various reasons that would have been worth pointing out. “

SCHEDULE SHAKEUP

The biggest change to Jeopardy!’s 40th season was the schedule.

Two-thirds of the season comprised of past-player tournaments instead of normal Jeopardy!

Some were shown because of the fall’s WGA strike, others because the game show producers wanted to expand into a more sports-like model.

When the season began, fans were in for a parade of Second Chances and Champions Wildcards that went on for months.

Then, Jeopardy! soldiered on with another Second Chance and Wildcard event and then the 2024 Tournament of Champions.

Then came spring’s Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament, and finally, Jeopardy! Masters in primetime.

Jeopardy! Universe

Jeopardy! first aired in 1964 until 1975. Then the nighttime version began in 1974. Since then, many spinoffs of the game show have emerged. Here they all are:

Jeopardy! – (syndicated) 1974 to present, weekdays on ABC at 7 pm ET.

Tournament of Champions – 1984 to present, features the top champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament.

Second Chance Tournament – 2022 to present features hand-selected non-winners from the season prior, where the prize is entry into Champions Wildcard.

Champions Wildcard – 2023 to present, features all one, two and three-day champions from the season prior worth entry into the Tournament of Champions.

Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament (syndication) – 2023 to present, features past greats invited by producers to vie for a slot in Masters.

Jeopardy! Masters (primetime) – 2023 to present, features the six highest-ranked Jeopardy! champions competing against each other.

Celebrity Jeopardy! (primetime) – 1992 to present, has celebrities compete against each other to raise money for charity.

Pop Culture Jeopardy (streaming) – 2024 to present, will feature teams of three tasked with pop culture trivia on Amazon Prime, hosted by Colin Jost, airdate TBD

Jeopardy! has done away with specialized tournaments like its College Tournaments, Kids Week, and Professor’s Tournament to gear towards a more sports-like model, with Masters being the top of the Jeopardy pyramid.

Other versions of Jeopardy! have fizzled out throughout the years as well, like Sports Jeopardy!.

On social media, fans made their thoughts crystal clear on the confusing, unceasing tournaments.

“How many damn second chances are we giving? #jeopardy This is getting old,” one said.

“Getting?” replied a second sarcastic commenter.

“ How long is this nonsense going to go on? No gimmicks. No tricks. Just regular old Jeopardy!, ’til 26,” another complained.

The bewildering number of tournaments was a huge break in tradition.

Producers understood their error and have decided to overhaul Season 41.

They’ve announced that there won’t be a tournament until 2025, so regular games of normal contestants will continue until the New Year.

“All of the remaining of 2024 of syndicated Jeopardy!, you are watching regular games,” the insiders confirmed.

In other words, all of the events like Second Chances, Wildcards, and JITs that fans were subject to in Season 40 will not take up as much time next season.

Instead, regular non-tournament Jeopardy! will continue when the new season starts and tournaments will happen in 2025.

OVERRULED

Producers threw many new ideas into its current season, but some may have been better left on the drawing board than the clue board.

Changes included a category rule that met with instant backlash, “cringe” Gen-Z clues, and the aforementioned endless barrage of tournaments.

Jeopardy!’s 40th season premiered in September 2023 and ended in July 2024 – between the WGA strike and the dismissal of co-host Mayim Bialik, it was an eventful season.

One change that caught viewers off guard had to do with categories.

Producers decided to require players to say the entire name of a category every time they selected a clue.

This meant players couldn’t abbreviate a category name to stay in the game’s flow but had to enunciate in full each time.

In one episode, this meant requesting “During Lou Gehrig’s Consecutive Game Streak” with every pick, leading to a seemingly rushed signoff from Ken, “We’ll see you tomorrow on Jeopardy!”

“If you’re going to make them slog through the entire category name every time, #Jeopardy, keep it to maybe three words tops,” one fan ripped on the change.

“The producers forcing contestants to say ‘During Lou Gehrig’s Consecutive Game Streak’ every time is ridiculous,” wrote another.

A third wrote: “Same, I’m beyond sick of this rule.”

A contestant confirmed to The U.S. Sun that producers asked players to do so for the benefit of viewers – though it seemed to have the opposite effect.