Host Mayim Bialik during a taping of the game show Jeopardy that aired on July 5, 2022.Tyler Golden/The Associated Press
Canadian Jeopardy champ Ray Lalonde says the show is asking would-be contestants to cross the picket line by going ahead with a new season using old questions.
Lalonde, a set builder and painter from Toronto who won 13 consecutive games last season, had previously said he wouldn’t participate in the show’s “tournament of champions” while the Writers’ Guild of America is on strike.
Jeopardy, which uses WGA workers to write its questions, has since said in a statement that it never planned to film the tournament of champions while the strike continues.
However, it says it is going ahead with filming a new season, as some questions were written ahead of the strike. It says it will share “exciting plans” about the rest of the season next month, but doesn’t plan to use game material written by non-WGA writers.
Even so, Lalonde says Jeopardy is a struck production, so he’s disappointed the show is going ahead while its writers are on strike.