Jeopardy! fans issue complaints as they fume over 'awkward' Season 41 premiere

Jeopardy! fans seemed underwhelmed with how the game show’s Season 41 premiere went down on Monday after highly anticipating Jeopardy!’s return .

Ken Jennings returned to host the trivia competition like he has been doing since early 2021. Competing on this season’s opening show was Jeopardy! champion ESL instructor Rachel Bradley alongside fellow contestants strategy consultant Amanda White and Naval officer Adam Reiffen. Rachel acquired $23,597 by the end of Season 40. Last night’s episode had some cringeworthy moments, one of the most notable being when Rachel answered a question about who the father was in Little Orphan Annie.

"Who is Sugar Daddy?" Rachel replied in true Jeopardy! fashion.

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The awkward attempt was of course wrong as any Annie fan would know the correct answer was Daddy Warbucks. Rachel’s error was heavily discussed online in a Jeopardy!-themed forum on Reddit.

"It wouldn't have been such a hard-knock life," one teased in the thread. A second pointed out, "Well, in some ways…" Another added, "Really awkward episode lol." Many also noted that the question about which planet is the coldest had seemingly had contestants hesitant since the answer was Uranus, and the planet has a cheeky pronunciation.

"No one wanted to say it," on Redditor commented. "Yeah I was waiting for 'what is your Uranus Ken!'" someone else exclaimed. Additionally, fans were irritated with a local news report breaking the death of Hollywood icon James Earl Jones interrupting the broadcast amid Final Jeopardy! Even though they were mournful of the legendary Star Wars villain’s passing.

“Watching this now. Final jeopardy, about to find out who answered correctly. They Broke in with a special news report, that they had already teased with during the break. It was about James Earl Jones demise. RIP, but they already told us during the commercial,” one Redditor penned.

"I checked my watch and they were able to bring us the news of his passing a whopping three minutes earlier than if they mentioned it on the evening news. He was a legend of incredible talent, but this seemed like an overreaction," a second viewer complained.

Adam was the only one who answered the Final Jeopardy! Question correctly. Amanda lost all her earnings since she waged everything she had at that point, which was $4K. Meanwhile, Rachel lost a nice chunk, ending with $5,398 after gambling, $2,602.

Adam came out victorious, going from $10,600 to $16,001 after he got the Final Jeopardy! clue correct and added his $5,401 wager to his earnings. He’s now the new Jeopardy! champion.