By Drew Dietsch
| Updated
Jeopardy! exists in a very unique place in the game show ecosphere. It’s one of the few remaining old school game shows from the ancient guard of the genre. And thanks to its particular trivia-based setup and tournaments, it has been the one game show that best extols the ideas of intelligence, education, and facts.
But, in a cultural landscape where those very ideas are increasingly not celebrated (or even openly denigrated), Jeopardy! has had to change with the times and adjust itself to welcome in a larger audience. And the latest attempt to do so has endangered the very reputation of a show that increasingly feels less and less true to its intended spirit.
Pop Culture Jeopardy!
Pop Culture Jeopardy! is a new series streaming on Amazon Prime Video that acts as a spinoff to the classic Jeopardy! format. But, in reality, the show is simply the lowest denominator take on bar trivia with the Jeopardy! skin draped over it. Hosted by Colin Jost, the series is clearly aiming for a much broader and younger audience than the usual game show’s viewer.
And it’s here that Pop Culture Jeopardy! reveals the crack in its foundation. By limiting the scope of the potential trivia to “pop culture”, the series comes to the realization that a lot of current cultural moments aren’t worthy of being interesting trivia. Watching contestants be unable to answer questions about YouTube controversies and TikTok celebrities doesn’t make me feel bad for the contestants. It makes me wonder why anyone should know these things, let alone audiences who watch Jeopardy! to both flex their own knowledge while also learning about worthwhile topics.
Pop Culture Jeopardy! demonstrates what makes the actual Jeopardy! series so engaging after all these years: viewers like the show’s advocacy for legitimate intelligence on a broad number of varied subjects. By narrowing things down to “pop culture”, the format and presentation don’t feel in sync.
And it looks like this is the direction the franchise wants to go, and it makes me want to stop watching any Jeopardy! show.
The End Of An Era
Look, I love movies. If there is one subject I feel confident about when it comes to trivia, it’s movies. I would not want there to be a Jeopardy! At the Movies series. Why? Because Jeopardy! isn’t formatted and themed to be the best game show about movies. Instead, you should craft a new game show around that as the key concept and build a game format that best enhances the idea of a game show centered around movies.
The same goes for pop culture, but because Jeopardy! is a name brand that people will recognize as opposed to a new game show property, this new series has to try and cram itself into an ill-fitting Jeopardy! jacket. And I can see Jeopardy! continuing to produce spinoffs in this vein until finding something that sticks.
There have been other issues with the regular show over the years but it has still managed to stay true to the spirit of Jeopardy!. This spinoff mindset feels like a dilution that will only continue as the regular show begins to seemingly lose cultural relevancy.
I’ve grown up with Jeopardy! and have always tried to watch it when I can. But lately, it’s starting to come across as the end of a particular game show era. With Ryan Seacrest taking over at Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! starting to mutate itself into new forms, maybe I’m better off finding old episodes and remembering the better years of one of my favorite game shows.
