JOLLY DAYS

Dumb Jeopardy

One of the fantastic things about organized sports is that the rules often aggregate to increase the drama. Sometimes those rules seem uncanny in their ability to increase the fun of the game. Even the shape of a football or length between bases in baseball makes for small dramas on standard plays. That cleverness at rule-making stops at the TV game show Jeopardy.

Jeopardy is a show with the dumbest rules of any game show on TV. They have just completed a contest of previous champions. A player that was behind three days running won at the end simply because the rules are so poorly crafted. In fact, in the finale tonight, the player with the lowest score was the only one to answer a tough question correctly — and still lost — remaining in last place. And the player who was clearly the strongest bet poorly and lost because of the bet.

The Final Jeopardy question itself is no different in kind than other questions, although the game rides on the correct answer. The wild card of the final bet diminishes the whole enterprise of the show, diminishing the value of the player's knowledge. The player who won had three times won because of betting errors of other players or quirks in the rules. Add to that a schoolmarmish host who comically appears to think he is suave, and even more comically appears to think snideness is equivalent to wit, and you have a show that is popular but far from as good as it could be. Dumb rules for a wannabe smart show.