'Jeopardy!' receives flak after contestant Bryan White loses his winning streak over 'terribly written' final clue
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: 'Jeopardy!', the trivia game show, came under criticism due to the presentation of baffling categories and terrible clues. Regular followers of the show brutally slammed it for giving the contestants an absurd final clue, which led to two-day champ Bryan White losing his winning streak in the June 30 episode.
However, this is not the first time fans have had issues with the framing of the final clues. Although White, a senior regulatory compliance analyst from California, managed to stay in the game, viewers were unimpressed with him as well as the show. They even criticized White and other contestants for enduring a challenging and unenjoyable match that concluded with a disappointing score.
'Jeopardy!' two-day champ Bryan White's brutal loss
During the episode of 'Jeopardy!', Mayim Bialik read off the Final Jeopardy! clue for the National Anthem category, saying, "The name of this country's national anthem translates as 'His Majesty's Reign' and its lyrics come from a 1,000-year-old-old poem." While contestant Courtney Johnston, a Denver attorney, gave an incorrect response, saying, "What is France?" defending champion White chose the wrong answer as well, adding, "What is Norway?" However, their fellow competitor Ilena Di Toro, a public relations specialist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had the correct guess, "What is Japan?". White's wager of $1,600 caused him to lose the lead, resulting in Toro becoming the new champion.
'FJs have been so terribly written'
Fans were baffled after the episode and stated their annoyance in a Reddit post. One wrote, "It's not so much difficult as it is vague. A lot of these recent FJs have been so terribly written," while another added, "That FJ was certainly a major difficulty spike, yeesh." A user wrote, "Yeah, how on earth are we supposed to get Japan from thousand-year-old monarchy?" slamming the absurd final clue. One more mentioned, "You have to phrase whether its 'Majesty' still actually reigns. Japan's, like Britain's, is ceremonial. The clue did not make that clear," with another chiming in with a possible explanation regarding why the clue might have been inadequate, writing, "It does seem to be missing some more information to point in the right direction. And I kind of wonder about the translation of 'majesty' from that country's language." "What a pain! Tough loss for Bryan. Adding 'Imperial' would've made this clue less vague," stated one sympathizing with White's loss.