Lately, more often than not, time has expired on a given Jeopardy! round before the contestants and TV audience can try their hand at all 30 clues. What was once a disappointing rarity has become irritatingly commonplace.
Yet the clock continues to reset for Alex Trebek, as his hosting tenure hits 33 years and counting.
As multiple sources noted in March of 2015, Trebek is currently slated to serve through 2018, which would elongate his run to 34 seasons. By the end of that contract, he will be approaching the age of 78.
That 2015 renewal followed rumors in 2013 that he was poised to hand the reins to Matt Lauer, Anderson Cooper or another prominent contender by 2016. Naturally, that year came and went with no such changing of the guard.
The right fit to fill Trebek’s copious loafers is another debate. Whether that 2016 transition should have happened as speculated is an easier case to settle.
All great associations between one person and one franchise eventually end. The time for a change has finally come in the case of these parties.
Granted, for this author’s fellow millennials and for some Generation Xers, it is virtually impossible to envision a game of Jeopardy! without Trebek in his longtime position. Then again, it felt impossible to imagine any Late Show other than The Late Show with David Letterman. It took time for parents deliberately turning on and ’90s kids inevitably absorbing NBC Nightly News to acclimate to that program’s post-Tom Brokaw era.
The difference between those two legends and Trebek is that they stepped aside before their shows explicitly needed new blood. And before it was plain that the hosts needed a change in capacity.
Indeed, the best solution now would be to keep Trebek around in other roles — some more visible than others — during and outside the show while installing a successor in the host’s chair.
For all he has done to put an appreciable face on Jeopardy! and make it a household staple, Trebek is starting to verify his mortality as a presenter. For all he has done to transform his fame and fortune into good causes (which he can still do), he is also letting his hard-earned glamor overrun the brim.
As a result, he is now habitually getting in the way of a good game. Condescending clarifications of incorrect responses and needless reiterations of any response’s effect on the scores are growing in frequency.
Multi-sentence editorializing after a contestant’s first-round interview answer adds nothing of value, either. Moments along the lines of the infamous “loser” remark this past October only reiterate the notion that the hosting crown has gone to the host’s head.
In recent years, Trebek has been visibly more admirable when promoting early education and other causes. For his own sake and that of his show, he ought to stick to that going forward. (Photo by Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images)
But we know from his well-documented range of philanthropy, much of which concerns education, that is not who Trebek really is. We can simply take it as the equivalent of a competitive individual taking on the proverbial Jekyll-and-Hyde rotation depending on whether the heat of the match is at hand.
Naturally, the problem there is that Trebek is supposed to be the official in this competition. Moreover, evoking the personality he consistently exudes outside of those weeknight half-hours has a way of muddying the show as well.
There is nothing wrong and everything right with offering an on-air hat-tip to museums and entertainment centers when they provide a full category’s worth of on-site video clues. But Trebek cannot seem to help himself in offering a mid-round paragraph of thanks when that special-edition category ends.
Sometimes, because that speech could not wait until later, other categories are unable to take their full turn. There have doubtlessly been many of those that a given contestant was well-versed in, but did not get a chance to utilize their knowledge.
Had every clue been given time to emerge, perhaps it would have changed the course of the game. It could have amplified the potential “payday” Trebek loves to hype on a nightly basis, or at least added a little more to the contestant’s comparative dewdrop of fame.
Trebek already has a permanent ocean of fame, and an interview with The Today Show’s Jenna Bush Hager last summer suggests he knows better than his conduct during taping indicates. As Hager phrased it, Trebek considers his contestants “the heart and soul” of Jeopardy!
There are plenty of easy ways for Trebek to translate that humility with more credibility. And he need not fully delete himself from the program, before or after his contract evaporates next year, to accomplish that.
As it is, he delivers almost as many video clues from special locations as a given member of his Clue Crew. There is no reason he could not do that every week or so, be it for one clue or one category, while a new emcee with plenty of potential, but plenty to prove, handles the studio.
The rest of the time, he would remain a natural ambassador for the Jeopardy! name while continuing his various public awareness and fundraising appearances.
Give him more time to associate himself and his show with vital causes, and give someone else a chance to give three people the time they need to build a maximum wager for the final round.
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