New “Jeopardy” host Ken Jennings was accused by fans on Twitter this week of unfairly adjudicating two contestants’ answers during the show Wednesday.
“Wow, is @jeopardy fixed? Why is Luigi allowed to correct himself, but Harriet isn’t?” one viewer wrote on Twitter.
On the show, current champion Luigi de Guzman first gave the answer “Constant” when shown a painting by John Constable.
“Say it again?” Jennings, who is only in his first official week as host, asked of de Guzman.
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“Sorry, who is Constable?” he answered, which Jennings accepted.
The category was “Cons,” which meant every answer would start with “Cons.”
However, later in the show, when contestant Harriet Wagner answered that the fantasy author of “Always Coming Home” was “Angela LeGuin” before attempting to correct her answer to Ursula LeGuin, she was interrupted by Jennings.
“No,” he said, before allowing de Guzman to give the correct answer.
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“Yes, Harriet, you remembered that her name was Ursula, but I had already begun ruling against you when you began correcting yourself,” Jennings explained.
Many fans on Twitter did not accept his reasoning.
“Not a fan of the ruling against Harriet tonight and a free ride for Guzman…Ken Jennings is partial and not a good moderator. Won’t be watching anymore,” one Twitter user wrote.
Another said, “#Jeopardy I’m not happy how #KenJennings is letting some people correct themselves and not others. And also partial answers like class instead of class action should NOT count.”
“Gosh, Jeopardy — why not have a certain amount of time to answer? Harriet answered her revised answer of Ursula at least as quickly as Luigi was allowed to correct his response from Constant to Constable a few minutes earlier,” a third said.
A fourth called de Guzman’s win at the end of the show an “unfair runaway.”
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“#Jeopardy why did Ken Jennings let one contestant (male) change a wrong answer, but ruled against another (female), even though she said the correct answer within the time limit? Tonight’s episode was an unfair runaway because of that ruling on the last answer in double jeopardy.”
Another fan claimed the ruling was misogynistic.
“That was totally unfair and Ken Jennings (and the ‘judges’) were absolutely wrong not to give her credit for a correct answer. Is the #misogyny from #Jeopardy? Sure looks like it!
“Ken, you blew it big time! Luigi was wrong! Harriet was correct, in time!” another chided.
However, others were not phased.
“So comforting and joyful to have @KenJennings behind the host podium of @Jeopardy It’s as the world should be,” a fan wrote.
Another praised the host. “Ken! You are really good at hosting Jeopardy!! Glad you get to do it with Mayim, she is also really good! Keep it up and thanks for keeping Jeopardy at the level it was with Alex!”
Jennings, a former “Jeopardy!” champion, and actress Mayim Bialik were named as the permanent replacements for Alex Trebek in July. Trebek died of cancer in 2020 after hosting the show for more than 37 years.
