Mayim Bialik Takes ‘Jeopardy!’ Podium Back From Ken Jennings For Upcoming Tournament

When Sony first announced the new hosts of “Jeopardy!,” they announced that Mayim Bialik would be hosting the special tournaments due to her busy filming schedule.

Bialik, who is hard at work filming season 2 of her sitcom “Call Me Kat,” has surrendered hosting duties back to “Jeopardy!” G.O.A.T. Ken Jennings, who many believed would fill in hosting duties for the rest of the year until Sony could announce a permanent replacement.

However, “Jeopardy!” is hosting a new never-before-seen tournament, and Bialik has been selected to host.

Although 2020 featured the “Jeopardy!” Teachers tournament, which was won by St. Clair Shores’ vocal music teacher, Ben Henri, “Jeopardy!” is now going to be hosting its first-ever Professor’s Tournament, which will run from December 6 through December 17th.

The two-week tournament will feature fifteen American professors competing for a shot for the semi-finals, which are held during the show’s second week. December 16 and December 17 will feature a two-day final round, where the winner is determined by the cumulative totals scored by contestants over those two days.

The first three professors that will kick off the first episode of the tournament is Hester Blum, Gautam Hans, and Gary Hollis. Blum is an English Professor at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. Hans is an Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, Tennessee. Hollis is a Chemistry Professor at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia.

Also attending the tournament is a Botany Professor, an Associate Professor of French Literature, an Associate Professor of Musicology, and an Associate Professor of Operations Research at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Considering that “Jeopardy!” features questions from history, to science, to pop culture, and to the ever-popular “Potpourri” category, each professor will have to draw from their vast well of general knowledge in all areas if they hope to have a chance of claiming the grand prize, and, more importantly, the honor of being named a “Jeopardy!” tournament champion.

After executive producer Mike Richards stepped down from his role as host and was fired from his job as executive producer, Sony announced that they would hold new guest auditions to start the hosting audition process all over again.

However, those plans were quickly scrapped, and Bialik started hosting the show’s 38th season. On Monday, November 8, Jennings stepped in to continue hosting duties, on the one-year anniversary of Alex Trebek’s death.

In a heartwarming video, Jennings revealed that Alex’s wife, Jean, had actually given Jennings Alex’s cuff links for his first guest host run in January, immediately after Alex had passed away. After Jennings won 74-consecutive games in 2004, he and Trebek became close friends, and many interpreted the passing of the cuff links to be a subtle sign that Alex wanted Ken to take over hosting “Jeopardy!”

“Please make him the permanent host!” one fan wrote. “Ken Jennings has such an incredible respect for the game, for Alex, and for the contestants.”

“Ken is fine, but I really love @missmayim,” another tweeted. “She needs to be the permanent host.”

“I would like to retract my earlier statement for thinking Aaron Rogers would be a nice selection for a host,” another joked. Although Aaron Rodgers was a popular choice during the guest hosting run, his recent anti-vaxx stance has some “Jeopardy!” fans thinking twice.

Jennings was actually the highest-rated guest host, pulling in an average of 10.3 million viewers during his six-week run. However, many feel that Jennings was denied the position as permanent host due to some offensive tweets he has made in the past.

“Alex was a great role model,” one fan wrote. “Ken Jennings once commented that a certain woman ‘would be ‘hot’ if she wasn’t in a wheelchair.’ That makes me not want him as the host. That is disrespectful. Alex wouldn’t want that.”

However, recent “Jeopardy!” champion Matt Amodio, who recently became the second-highest consecutive game winner in September with a total of 38 games, couldn’t help but fire back to defend Jennings.

“Alex definitely would’ve wanted you to invoke his name to criticize the host of the show today, though, so good job,” he replied.

Although a decision has yet to be made on who will take over as the next permanent “Jeopardy!” host, it’s clear that this new decision will probably prove to be just as controversial as the last one.