Jeopardy! producers address dumping Mayim Bialik

A new, mostly positive behind-the-scenes write-up of the world of massively successful syndicated TV quiz show Jeopardy!, published in Rolling Stone this week, couldn't help but get into the many controversies that have dogged the series in the five years since Alex Trebek's death in 2020. That includes one of the first public comments from the show's producers about the decision to remove host Mayim Bialik from the show, something the series was circumspect enough about, back when it happened in 2023, that it only became official after Bialik herself said she'd been let go on social media.

Bialik's tenure as the official host of the series was always asterisked all to hell. After previously being announced as a host for tournaments and specials for the series, she was named full host in the immediate aftermath of the fallout around producer Mike Richards' one-week tenure in the main job, after Richards went from "Guy tapped to pick the new host" to "Guy who is the new host" at the end of the show's very public season-long audition process. (Even now, people at Jeopardy! seem to be very reticent to talk about Richards, who had dirty laundry from past jobs dredged up as soon as he was named the new host. The only person who goes on the record about him in the Stone piece is contestant Matt Amodio, who was in the midst of his $1.5 million run on the series when the whole kerfuffle came and went, and who jokingly refers to Richards as "He Who Shall Not Be Named.") Because Bialik was still working on her Fox sitcom Call Me Kat when she got the job, Jeopardy! producers also tapped the game's most famous champion, Ken Jennings, to help fill in hosting duties. (Creating an awkward situation where Bialik was referred to on broadcasts as "the host of Jeopardy!" while Jennings was only ever referred to as "hosting Jeopardy!." "I believe the gerund was a carefully hammered-out compromise," Jennings "observes wryly" in the piece.)

That status quo held for a while, with Jennings and Bialik regularly trading off hosting duties. But circa 2023, post-Richards producer Michael Davies decided the show needed a single host, and it wasn't going to be her. Acknowledging that Bialik was "a really gifted television force," Davies says that, as previous worries about Jennings' TV inexperience fell away, the decision to focus on one host got easier. "As time went on, we started to hear more from our television stations that they were starting to see Ken was making a lot of progress as he got more attempts," Davies said. "And then Mayim, which was absolutely her right, elected not to cross the picket line during the [SAG-AFTRA] strike. And as Ken got more reps, I think he got better and he earned the job.”

As Davies notes, the 2023 strikes were the death knell for Bialik's tenure on the series. A SAG-AFTRA member, Bialik opted not to host on the show, which was in open conflict with its writers at the time. (Game show hosting is covered under a different contract than the one that SAG-AFTRA struck on in 2023, so neither Bialik or Jennings were required to strike as part of union membership, but, like several past champions who said they wouldn't play in tournaments while the writers were on strike, Bialik refused to appear on the series out of solidarity.) In December of 2023, Bialik wrote on social media that, "Sony has informed me that I will no longer be hosting the syndicated version of Jeopardy!" (Jennings said at the time that Bialik's removal from the series "took [him] off guard.")

After all that chaos, Jeopardy! had a relatively quiet 2024, even as it pushed forward with some major expansion plans—notably the launch of streaming series Pop Culture Jeopardy!, hosted by Colin Jost. (Davies, perhaps fearing a trend, was quick to smack down rumors that Jennings had been unhappy not to be asked to host the series.)