Jeopardy! fans notice everything. The hit quiz show was called out by viewers after the final scores were accidentally revealed within the first two minutes of Wednesday night’s (March 8) episode.
Mayim Bialik is currently hosting the High School Reunion Tournament, and the competition was in the first half of its two-part finals when the apparent gaffe occurred. After she concluded her introduction by congratulating the three contestants, the camera flashed to a shot of them standing behind their boards — all of which presented their final scores.
While the moment could have easily been overlooked, our suspicions were only proven at the end of the taping when Justin Bolsen of Brown University won $13,570, Maya Wright of Emory University raked in $3,370 and Jackson Jones of Vanderbilt University brought home the ultimate prize of $24,000 — the same scores we had seen at the top of the episode.
The obvious production blunder left many Jeopardy! fans puzzled, as one wrote, “I found that super confusing and wondered if I’d missed the first day of the finals.”
Another echoed, “I was majorly confused on that one too,” while a third person said, “I saw that and was like, wait, did I miss a day, is this day 2? And then saw the scores at the end and then realized they made a big oopsy.”
“For a moment I thought I’d become clairvoyant,” someone else joked.
Another fan added, “Noticed that. Unforgivable,” before someone fumed, “An inexcusable production error.”
“Wow, given that this was taped months or weeks ago, you’d think they’d actually proof-view it first before putting on air,” another user chimed in.
As for why it happened? One avid viewer suggested, “My guess is that they had to do a pickup on all/part of Mayim’s intro & recorded that at the end of the game but forgot to reset the screens.”
Decider has reached out to Jeopardy! for comment.
Jeopardy! airs on weekdays at 7/6c on ABC.