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Watson ruined J! for me

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Kevin Prather:
It seems to me the "problem" of players hunting for Daily Doubles is incredibly easy to fix. Start putting them in the top row more often, and maybe even put both in the same category. Make it truly arbitrary where they go.

TLEberle:
I don't know that it is arbitrary because you want those clues to have a bit more thought and time devoted to them, but to your point, what if it was a truly random selection?

If we're in this next iteration of Jeopardy, why don't we have players cracking fifty grand on the regular? It seems like for every winner of twenty grand we get three games where the players are barely clearing half the cash on the board? Where are the players who are winning those thirty and forty game runs? Perhaps it is that the players we are seeing are by and large not capable of winning fifty grand a day for a month, and that's fine. I prefer the aberrations be rare.

If you don't like players playing bottom up or hopscotch? That's fine, but let's be honest about it. If there's a champion I don't care for I will blip to FJ to see fi there's a turnover. There are lots of shows I don't watch because I don't find them compelling or compelling enough to bump off something else. I don't think it is fair to say "Watson ruined it" given how far away we are from that.

JasonA1:

--- Quote from: Kevin Prather on May 23, 2025, 04:25:37 PM ---It seems to me the "problem" of players hunting for Daily Doubles is incredibly easy to fix. Start putting them in the top row more often, and maybe even put both in the same category. Make it truly arbitrary where they go.

--- End quote ---

A noble thought, but I think no matter where you put Daily Doubles, you're not going to undo the behavior of players looking for them above all else. Or at the very least, changing the common locations wouldn't suddenly make people play in the top-down-dominant style of the '80s and '90s. If DDs were suddenly in the top row even 10% of the time, that would be a problem of a different stripe, where these (often) game-deciding clues are now much, much easier.

And despite Alex supporting the notion in interviews, and the writers even calling out, I never bought that idea that categories are much easier to play if taken top-down. Every once in a while, a wordplay tack is hard to grasp without an easier-to-play example, or something like that. But for the most part, the order doesn't seem to inform understanding or success.

-Jason

Matt Ottinger:
The incredibly easy fix, to the degree that this is actually a "problem", is simply to make it a rule that they have to play categories top to bottom.

MSTieScott:

--- Quote from: SamJ93 on May 23, 2025, 03:49:56 PM ---Michael Davies openly saying he wants to produce the show as if it were a "sport,"

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: SamJ93 on May 23, 2025, 03:49:56 PM ---they may need to introduce a major twist to shake things up sooner or later.

--- End quote ---

The first part is why the second part won't happen. Sports generally don't introduce game-altering changes on a regular basis. In the past couple of decades, there's been Major League Baseball's pitch timer... and anything else?



--- Quote from: JasonA1 on May 23, 2025, 07:03:03 PM ---And despite Alex supporting the notion in interviews, and the writers even calling out, I never bought that idea that categories are much easier to play if taken top-down.

--- End quote ---

While I agree that not every category is made easier if played from the top to the bottom, there are instances when being exposed to earlier clues can help. For example, if a contestant is unsure whether a bottom-row clue is referring to Monet or Renoir, if a previous clue in the category already mentioned one of the two artists, the contestant would know to eliminate that option.

The benefit becomes more apparent in a category with a limited number of possible responses -- for example, a category in which all the answers are continents. Or a category that aired a little under a month ago in which the contestants had to identify the silent vowel in a word -- if the category had been played top to bottom, the fourth-row clue probably wouldn't have been a stand-and-stare.

There are also benefits for the home audience, and not just the more satisfying feeling of material gradually increasing in difficulty as the round progresses. For the categories in which the writers attempt a clever-but-convoluted manner of presenting all five clues, it's no fun when a contestant starts with the second-hardest clue, none of the contestants understand what's going on, and the host has to explain what the contestants were expected to do after no one rings in. Better to have all that happen during the clue with the lowest stakes... or maybe that first clue is easy enough that the gimmick is more evident, demonstrating to everybody how the category works. (This is also the case for categories in which the host explains at the top of the round what the contestants will have to do, the category isn't selected until the round is halfway over, and everybody has forgotten that they need to, say, respond with the name of the movie character.)

It doesn't help with every category, or even a majority of categories (however, note how useful it was in the "P"s & "Q"s category in the linked episode), but when it goes wrong, it's rough to watch.

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