Jeopardy! contestant reveals why fellow player ‘seemed sad’ and ‘discouraged’ over loss during summer reruns

A JEOPARDY! contestant has revealed why they think a fellow player seemed a little downcast after their loss on the show.

The iconic game show is currently on hiatus, with reruns hitting television screens across the country until the new season kicks off.

Season 41 of Jeopardy! will premiere very shortly, with its return poised for September 9, 2024, and it is set to run through to July 25, 2025.

On Monday, a rerun aired that saw Alex Jacob step up to the podium.

Alex, 39, is an American former professional poker player and Jeopardy! fan-favorite.

But fans noticed that Alex was downcast in the episode that was re-aired this week, before the contestant who beat him explained what really went down.

Sharing in a Reddit thread that they thought Alex seemed downcast, the original social media poster said, "He seemed sad or discouraged during tonight's game/replay?? Anyone think so?"

Someone else agreed, saying, "I’m in his School of Trivia league and he’s really gotten behind with sending out/scoring quizzes the past few months.

"I hope everything is alright with him, seems like such a cool guy."

"He didn’t seem at the top of his game. And come to think of it many of the players in this tournament didn’t," said another.

"Which has me wondering if some of the complaints that players had about the short preparation time had some effect here."

A third then added, "I think that's just his look or demeanor. He has a serious, intense, no-frills way about it. But he definitely seemed upset at the end about missing that Final."

But then a former Jeopardy! champion weighed in, who was actually the person who ended up beating Alex during the episode fans were discussing.

'IT WAS AN INTENSE WEEK'

"It was kind of an intense week, rough game and a weird ending. If I do say so myself," replied former Jeopardy! champion Jennifer Quail.

She added, "Play-wise Alex was great. He's so fast his podium's lights are distracting when they're in the corner of your vision."

Replying to Jennifer, one fan said, "Congrats on your win Jennifer! I remembered that FJ answer at the last minute thanks to the original airing of this episode."

This comes after executive producer Michael Davies revealed that things might be different during Season 41, because he wants to bring in a huge change.

MAJOR CHANGE TO FORMAT

Michael wants to make a change to Jeopardy! that was previously successful on Celebrity Jeopardy!.

Speaking on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, the boss said that "some parts of our audience get very lost in our gameplay".

He added, "Now, with all of the Daily Double hunting, people jump all over. They go to the deeper dollar value first and jump all over the board.

"I don’t think it would ever be natural to dictate players to play in a certain order."

Michael then revealed that one change they made in the celebrity version of the show was that they left the three contestants on the right side of the screen.

"So you could see the full game board when people choose the categories," he added, noting, "and we also highlighted where people chose them so you had a real geographical sense of where the clue was coming from."