JEOPARDY! came right down to the buzzer on Monday, July 11th.
Its champ lost by a shocking dollar amount in the final round during the Mayim Bialik-hosted game.
Mayim, 46, is hosting Jeopardy! for her last week before Ken Jennings returns.
Out since May, the alum is set to host the last two weeks of Season 38 per TV listings.
The permanent host position is still on the board, as feverish quiz show fans are well-aware.
But tonight, D.C. math professor Robert Won, a 1-day champion with winnings of $32,001, lost in a wild Final Jeopardy showdown that made fans forget about the host battle.
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Mayim opened the show by praising Rob – perhaps a fatal foreshadowing.
She gushed how he “estimated the exact amount needed to come away with a win” on Friday – which he did, winning by $1 with a quite mathematical Final Jeopardy wager.
Tonight, however, he wasn’t the only calculated contestant up there.
Steve Clarke, a Chesapeake Virginia lawyer, was clearly listening when Mayim shared how smart the former champ’s wagering had been.
Going into Final Jeopardy, Robert was doing incredibly well, in the lead with $23K having gotten two Daily Doubles and wagering a huge $5K each.
His lawyer opponent had $13.8K – and was quite far off.
The Final Jeopardy clue read: “It’s one of the most revived shows in Broadway history & in 2001 it was designated the state opera of South Carolina.”
Steve got the final clue correct, while Robert didn’t – the former responding “Porgy & Bess.”
But both coincidentally wagered the exact same amount – $4601 – and the champ lost the game by $2.
Fans were floored by Robert’s miscalculation, and the new champ’s correct one.
“He shouldn’t have wagered anything,” one shocked fan wrote on YouTube.
“Exactly,” wrote another as a third simply wrote “Wow!”
“What a smart wager by the winner!” wrote a fourth as Steve had seemingly anticipated exactly how Robert would bet.
Ironically, in a clip shared from the set on Friday, the former champion told moderator Mayim: “I was terrified that I’m a math professor and I wagered wrong.
“Like if I lost on a wrong wager my colleagues wouldn’t let me hear the end of that,” he laughed nervously.
“You did it right by one dollar,” Mayim replied with a smile.
Ken and Mayim began filling in for the legendary Alex Trebek after his tragic 2020 passing and a fleet of Season 37 celebrity guest hosts, including now-disgraced Mike Richards.
Between them, fans largely prefer Ken after a season of split hosting and some controversial games under her including stilted games, repeated misjudged clues and questionable rulings.
When Mayim opened the currently airing pre-taped week, one Twitter user fumed: “Why is Mayim STILL hosting? I don’t get it.
“I thought she and Ken were trading off? She has had WAY more weeks than he has.”
Ken famously won the most games ever in 2004, 74 straight, and to many seems like the natural successor to Alex Trebek having bonded with the late legend and handling his games with gusto.
The show alum hosted through the earlier part of this season, though it’s been a while since fans have seen him.
But given the evidence that Ken will be coming back to finish it out, some are thinking this is categorically good news.
One possibility that has been implied by execs is that the actress could simply host spinoffs soon, perhaps with Buzzy Cohen.
Executive producer Mike Davies told Variety on June 25: “We hope to have a hosting announcement very, very soon.”
“But with all of our plans for Jeopardy!—which is more Jeopardy!, not less, more versions — we’re going to need multiple hosts to represent the entire audience.
“To represent the entire country, in order to take this franchise forward.”
Another clue that Ken has been slated for the main gig was that he accepted a 2022 Daytime Emmy award in June alone without Mayim, who also wasn’t in its montage, and she has her sitcom renewed for fall.
The show’s ratings nearly doubled to 9.7M viewers when Ken made his first appearance.
When Mayim took over her hosting duties the headcount dropped to 5.9 million viewers during a college championship and she hasn’t bested Ken’s ratings since during Season 38.
If so, and as many are hoping, Ken would host the main show, with “multiple hosts for the franchise” altogether.
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That said, Ken may be his own worst enemy – he was considered a “shoo-in” by SONY in 2021 per Esquire before his problematic “wheelchair” tweets resurfaced and the Jeopardy! journey became a longer one.
Steve will be back tomorrow to go for win number two.
