DANGER! fans were in an uproar over a three-day champion’s impressive victory on Friday.
But those who prefer Ken Jennings on host Mayim Bialik soon delighted at a surprising announcement.
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Emily Fiasco, a high school band conductor from St. Louis, took home a solid win totaling $87K.
She defeated Christopher Arns and Anmol Sinho in an impressive way.
But the fun-loving player isn’t the only one returning Monday, July 18.
Mayim, 46, will be eliminated for Ken48, news tastefully tucked into the credits.
Long time announcer Johnny Gilbert94, voiced who would be playing with Emily on Monday.
But when a screen with Ken’s silhouette appeared, he cheerfully added, “And Ken Jennings will be back to host!”
Fans leaning the alum forward for the regular gig were quite pleased.
“Ken Jennings is back Monday!” one tweeted.
‘THANK GOD!’
“Yay Ken is back!” wrote another.
“The long national nightmare is over!!!!!” a Mayim critic ripped.
“Just heard from our beloved announcer Johnny Gilbert that @KenJennings is back as host. Thank God!!!” wrote a fourth.
A fifth shared a GIF of a cheering crowd: “When Johnny Gilbert said, ‘…and Ken Jennings is back as host.'”
Ken shocked his supporters when he announced in May that he would become out for “months.”
However, it was rumored that he would return on Monday by TV broadcasts to close the season — and now that seems anything but the case.
Meanwhile, three-day champion Emily also scored some fans tonight.
She picked up 11 correct answers in the first round, won two categories and entered Final Jeopardy with $29K.
She also got that last clue right – “What Is: Titanic” and sealed the deal with another $5,000 and a $34K win.
Emily got 28 clues right and 1 wrong when a fan tweeted, “Well done Emily! Impressive!”
“Someone was in full charge tonight,” another wrote on her buzzer – she will meet Ken on Monday.
PROBABLY?
Ken and Mayim started filling in for the legendary Alex Trebek after his tragically 2020 over and a fleet of Season 37 celebrity guest hosts, including now disgraced Mike Richards.
The permanent hosting slot is still undecided as Season 38 ends on July 31, 2022.
The ratings almost doubled to 9.7 million viewers when Ken first appeared.
When Mayim took over her hosting duties, the viewership during a college championship dropped to 5.9 million viewers and sadly, she hadn’t surpassed Ken’s ratings since Season 38.
From those telltale reviews to “cryptic hints,” fans have collected clues that the former champion will be chosen over the actress.
First, he confused his fans when he pulled out of the new season of The Chase.
Another one was that Ken Receives a Daytime Emmy Award for 2022 in June alone without Mayim, who wasn’t in the editing either — and she’s revamped her Fox sitcom, making her busier than him.
“Please tell me this is because you are taking on the full-time Jeopardy hosting job,” one fan tweeted, while hundreds of others thought he was clearing his schedule.
Fans are not happy with Mayim’s presence on stagehitting her on mistakes and accidents quite regularly.
Fan pages and live tweet followers have largely said during her eight straight weeks that Mayim hasn’t found the rhythm necessary to host such a complex show.
They have her pattern of only responding “that’s correct!” nit picked! at comments, hesitating when to let unspecific half-correct reactions fly, laughing in the face of “True Daily Doubles” and can’t connect with players during the Q&A sections.
Mayim then faced anger from fans when a player’s signature was ruled too carelessly in FJ, even though she had apparently written “Harriet Tubman”.
And last month – while no fault of the actress-turned-presenter – there was… ironically a typo in Final Jeopardy just days after the spelling error which couldn’t have come at a worse time.
During her go this summer she also made a off-color joke about marijuana and seemed to misunderstand legacy of the band Queen.
Fans slapped her for keeping her cue cards close, but those awkward moments happened outside the book.
That said, viewers have warmed up to the actress and would certainly be okay with an ongoing co-host situation as the show is about the players and not the host, as Alex once said.
Ken surprisingly tweeted in May: “I’m handing over the keys to the talented actor-producer-writer-director (!) Mayim Bialik for a few months”, adding: “We’re lucky to have her! I’ll be back for the end of the season.”
Since then he’slei-ing’ low in Hawaii and at home in Seattle, Washington – although he’s said he’s already bugged to shoot more episodes for season 39, there’s another hint that the job could be his.
One possibility implied by executives is that the actress could just organizing spin-offs soon, maybe with Buzzy Cohen.
If so, Ken would be hosting the main show, with a total of “multiple hosts for the franchise”.
Danger! airs weeknights at 7 p.m. ET.
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