CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA: In what seems to be a regular occurrence every week, ‘Jeopardy!’ host Mayim Bialik is once again a target of the game show’s fans’ disappointment. The host is being slammed for allowing a barely legible response which has led to a contestant clearing one round unfairly, according to the fans.
A few weeks ago, Bialik had ruled the nine-day champion Ben Chan’s misspelled response wrong, ending his long streak. The fans have questioned Bialik’s hosting skills and these incidents have only added fuel to the fire.
How was Mayim Bialik unfair in her ruling?
The main issue most viewers of ‘Jeopardy!’ seem to have with the host Bialik has been her inconsistency in applying the game show’s rules. In the last episode, the three contestants, Suresh, Joe and Laura, were asked the final Jeopardy, "He starred in the 2 films whose soundtracks were the top 2 bestselling albums of 1978." Laura, who was the last on the podium with $600, wrote quite illegibly, 'Who is John Travolta?' followed by a struck-off 'Bacon.'”
The contestant cleared up her answer by speaking it aloud saying, “I changed my mind. John Travolta?” to which Bialik approved her answer with, “I’m glad you changed your mind.”
Back in May, when contestant Ben Chan was running high on his 9-day streak, he missed out on a longer winning streak because of a wrong spelling. The final Jeopardy of his episodes was “Both of the names of these 2 lovers in a Shakespeare play come from Latin words for ‘blessed.'” The contestant’s response read “Beatrice and Benedict” which was ruled wrong by the host, the second name being correctly spelled as 'Benedick.'
According to the rules shared on Jeopardy!’s official website, “Written responses to the Final Jeopardy! clue do not have to be spelled correctly, but they must be phonetically correct and not add or subtract any extraneous sounds or syllables.” The rule quite clearly points toward Bialik’s strange unfair ruling on the game show.
Fans react to Mayim Bialik’s blunders
Fans of the game show started flooding social media after the episode, especially Twitter with comments about Bialik’s repeated mistakes. One fan tweeted, “Tonight the lady answers the question- who is John Travolta- she spells it wrong and is rewarded with the correct response- but a few weeks ago the guy misspells the answer and is told NO that’s wrong- what gives???”
Some fans were put off by what Bialik did but did not pay the host much disappointment. A viewer tweeted,”"travolfa" If she didn't say the name out loud, not sure if they would have credited her. Not like she could change any endings though.” Others were quite baffled by the note on which the episode ended saying, “The fact that this was accepted as a correct final #Jeopardy response is absolutely insane.” Many memes also emerged following this episode.
Fans were previously quite disheartened over Ben Chan leaving the game show. One fan tweeted, “I am beyond disgusted with @Jeopardy!! They’ve never penalized anyone for wrong spelling, yet they chose to penalize 9-game winner Ben Chan in Final Jeopardy and cost him the game..He missed ONE LETTER!! This is so wrong!!! #Jeopardy #BringBackBenChan” Another fan broke down Chan’s answer according to the game show’s rules and tweeted, “Ben Chan was correct in writing Benedict. Either Benedick or Benedict as shown in the title IS acceptable.”
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