Jeopardy! Season 32 (2015-2016)

[Clanstarling]

One of the benefits of getting older is that somehow, leg hair is no longer an issue. The chin, of course, is a different matter.

[Browncoat]

I look forward to those days.

[Mystery Author]

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One of the benefits of getting older is that somehow, leg hair is no longer an issue. The chin, of course, is a different matter.

LOL! Damn straight. That said, once a year I get my legs waxed. The Teacher's Tourny was *yawn.*

[Roaster]

"Power Players" week is misnamed. Only one contestant has a position of power: US Senator Al Franken (who is a former show business guy).  Other than that:

3 people from the arts (Jonathan Franzen, Louis C.K., Matthew Weiner)
A couple political operatives
Way too many journalists

I will be rooting against all the journalists.

The Jeopardy website has this week's lineups: https://www.jeopardy.com/about/this-week-on-jeopardy

[peeayebee]

I'm sure 'Power Players' is one of those Jeopardy puns. Being in Washington DC, it seems to mean a person in political power, but it really means contestants who are smart (or are thought to be smart) or who play Jeopardy well.

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 7:59 PM, Browncoat said:

It made me a little sad that no one knew Easy Rawlins, and that Jill missed her DD of Toni Morrison. 

FJ completely stumped me, though. 

My answer of Toni Morrison was a complete guess and I was shocked as hell to get it right.  I knew Easy Rawlins, though, mostly from the movie of Devil in a Blue Dress.

Quote

I was out drinking at the pub and downed a sydharb or two.

Well, it IS Australian after all.

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 8:43 PM, Grundoon59 said:

I haven't been able to watch the whole tournament but did see Jill in her original game and the two night finals.  I am sure she is probably an excellent teacher and she certainly enjoyed being a contestant, but I had too root against her because her running commentary made me nuts.  She needs to know that having an unexpressed is allowed and even to be encouraged.

Even after reading stuff here about it, I still didn't notice her doing that.  But I'm one of the very few people on previously who, even after having it explained multiple times, doesn't hear vocal fry at all, so maybe I'm just oblivious.

[Browncoat]

That was a surprisingly good game!  Not too many TS, and a challenging FJ.  I blanked on FJ as well, then facepalmed when Alex revealed the answer.

[Trey]

2 minutes ago, Browncoat said:

That was a surprisingly good game!  Not too many TS, and a challenging FJ.  I blanked on FJ as well, then facepalmed when Alex revealed the answer.

Ditto re the face palm:) I figured it would turn out to be something obvious but that didn't help me any.

That is probably the best "celebrity" game I've ever seen.  Hope the rest of the week is as good.

[M. Darcy]

I guessed veto - it seemed the most obvious.

The questions during the interview section were just stupid - I wonder who came up with them.

I'm just glad Franzen lost. 

[CarpeDiem54]

That was a pretty decent game.  That S.E. person turned me off immediately ("I love Twitter!" and her weird belief that religion is only 2,000 years old.).

The only TS I remember was Trinity.

I got FJ, but that was a poorly worded clue.  Tribunes didn't just "sit by the door", they participated in the Senate.  Once I got over that confusion, I figured it out.

[mojoween]

Huh.  I found the whole thing to be beyond annoying.  I didn't like any of them and am I mistaken, or was Yankee Stadium a $1000 answer?  I mean, Mickey Mantle was in the freaking clue.  I thought most of the clues were insulting.

I do have to say that as irritating it would be, and I KNOW it would be irritating, there is no way I could have stopped myself from answering "Da Bears."

[Mumbles]

Quote

I'm just glad Franzen lost. 

Hah! When I heard he was competing in this I was ready to root against him, just because he was such a dick to Oprah years ago (I'm not an Oprah fan, and I kind of got his point, but he didn't have to be so ungracious to her, and so dismissive of her audience). That said, when I saw who he was competing against, I started rooting for him because....

Quote

That S.E. person turned me off immediately ("I love Twitter!" and her weird belief that religion is only 2,000 years old.).

....she's SO annoying. That said I was surprised she knew as much as she did. And while I don't like her, I am glad that a charity helping hungry children got $50k.

[peeayebee]

I got Trinity. I don't remember if there were any other TSs I got. I also came up with veto, which I was proud of since none of the three got it.

I didn't catch that S.E. said religion's been around for 2,000 years. I guess we know what religion she was thinking of.

Nice coincidence for Franzen that one of the categories was birds, and his charity was for birds. (Rather than, for the birds.) I was really surprised that he didn't do better on the Shakespeare category.

Alex's explanation at the beginning that the power players all had the news in common was kind of dumb with his saying that they were all either in the news business or made the news. All celebrities make the news in some way.

I thought the questions were pretty easy, though I missed some. 

[Bastet]

I didn't make it home in time (and if S.E. Cupp was playing, I'm glad I missed it), but I read the clues at the archive.

Petruchio was a TS?!  Of course, being a Moonlighting fan helps, but I still would have expected someone to get that.  Trinity as a TS surprised me, too, because if I can answer a clue about religion, everyone should be able to.

I cannot believe Chuck Todd said Amsterdam when asked to name the city in which the Royal Danish Ballet is based.  Presumably his mind read/heard Danish as Dutch rather than actually thinking Amsterdam is in Denmark, but how embarrassing.

I got veto, but as an educated guess; I'd never heard that fact before.

Edited May 17, 2016 by Bastet

[Clanstarling]

I was surprised they couldn't come up with Trinity, though I did think the clue was poorly worded and might have caused some confusion.

As for S.E. and the 2000 year old religion, iirc the question was in the context of religion in politics these days - and the hubbub is mostly with the Christian right. I think I can see why her brain went to 2000. On the other hand, she was talking about God, not Jesus, so by whatever measure, it was a weird reply.

[ottoDbusdriver]

2 hours ago, mojoween said:

Huh.  I found the whole thing to be beyond annoying.  I didn't like any of them and am I mistaken, or was Yankee Stadium a $1000 answer?  I mean, Mickey Mantle was in the freaking clue.  I thought most of the clues were insulting.

I do have to say that as irritating it would be, and I KNOW it would be irritating, there is no way I could have stopped myself from answering "Da Bears."

And I thought that the Teacher's Tournament clues were easy last week -- the clues today were basically Teen Tournament level.  That stadiums category was way too easy.

The only thing I whiffed on was FJ.

[Good Queen Jane]

In defense of SE Cupp, she did realize what she had said about 2000 years and tried to amend her answer to mean in Western civilization. Not a great save, but she did try.

[vibeology]

Agreed about Cupp. She was asked about the belief that the world is getting more secular and that most commonly comes from people talking about the "War on Christmas" and stuff so she obviously went right to Christianity and then tried to backtrack to show that she understood the difference. It was a dumb question anyhow. Alex's interview questions for the tournaments have been awful. Asking her about her political views made sense because she is a commentator but the lack of segue from "I support gay marriage" to "Is the world becoming more secular?" was so clunky.

I actually liked her quite a bit. She seemed to have a pretty wide knowledge base. She was eager to jump into the ballet category and had an adorably dorky way of pressing the button. I've never been all that impressed with her when I see her on CNN (right? They all blend together to me) but I enjoyed her here.

[M. Darcy]

Quote

That S.E. person turned me off immediately ("I love Twitter!"

That didn't bother me because I saw it as her showing what a pretentious jerkwads Franzen and Alex were being about twitter.

[secnarf]

SE was someone who, by (almost) any measure, would annoy me immensely, but for some reason she kind of grew on me. I thought she did a reasonable job of answering Alex's ridiculous interview questions, and she had a decent knowledge base as well.

I don't get CNN so I had no idea who she was before this, though.

I don't think they should have the tournaments back to back though - I want my regular Jeopardy back!

[PaulaO]

I liked Franzen (is he the author outed on Oprah?) and liked that his charity was for the birds.

I've decided Power Players and Teachers' Tournament are Jeopardy! light, especially the PP.  It's just for charity so I'm o.k. with the board not being regular Jeopardy! tough.  The Teachers' Tournament is a way to recognize teachers, although the questions could be tougher (or the teachers could be smarter).

[dcalley]

2 hours ago, PaulaO said:

I liked Franzen (is he the author outed on Oprah?) and liked that his charity was for the birds.

Franzen didn't like Oprah's book club, which made her mad; James Frey was outed as having made things up in his "memoir," which made her mad.

[dcalley]

Save yourselves and skip Tuesday's game if you haven't already been subjected to it!

Michael Steele couldn't get Colin Powell. Nobody could get Colin Powell (and many other easy questions).

[secnarf]

Did Alex seriously ask Lara about her being sexually assaulted in the interview portion?! I was pouring tea at the time and actually splashed it on myself in shock when I heard that. 

[mjc570]

Do these celebrity (sorry, "power") players really bring in enough of an audience to make up for the truly awful game play?  I couldn't even watch today (Tuesday) it was SO PAINFUL. 

[ClareWalks]

Lara Logan was annoying as all hell. *reads the clue* "Oh, sports, we don't know sports! That's SPORTS! We don't know that!" I am of the firm belief that if you don't ring in, you SHUT UP and give the others a chance to do so.

[SeanC]

Jesus, that was excruciating.

I never really how fast the ordinary players keep the game moving until seeing those guys cover maybe half the board in a round.

[mojoween]

What the holy hell did I just watch?

And I'm not even talking about Alex's interview with Lara because I have to believe that he vetted that with her first or I'll throw something at the TV.

[GreekGeek]

5 minutes ago, mjc570 said:

Do these celebrity (sorry, "power") players really bring in enough of an audience to make up for the truly awful game play?  I couldn't even watch today (Tuesday) it was SO PAINFUL. 

No kidding! I thought these were world travelers and people who ate, drank, and breathed politics. The number of questions they missed was staggering.

Quote

Did Alex seriously ask Lara about her being sexually assaulted in the interview portion?! I was pouring tea at the time and actually splashed it on myself in shock when I heard that.

That was a really grim discussion for a Jeopardy! interview! 

Quote

Lara Logan was annoying as all hell. *reads the clue* "Oh, sports, we don't know sports! That's SPORTS! We don't know that!" I am of the firm belief that if you don't ring in, you SHUT UP and give the others a chance to do so.

I thought Jill in the Teachers' Tournament was annoying with the noises and commentary, but Lara was 100 times worse. I can understand not following sports, but nobody seemed to know much about anything else either.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Oh that infamous Kyoto Beef -- I remember it well.

Lara Logan apparently knows anatomy about as well as she knows sports.

Has Lara Logan even practice before she went on this show.  

So many unread clues left on the board -- is that some sort of record for any regular game or tournament ?  I couldn't believe it when AT said that there was less than a minute left in the round right after the contestant conversations.

"Wilson !!!" from Castaway -- no one knew that ?? So many TSs.

Wow, these guys really were missing a lot on the political and history questions.

And none of them knew who wrote 'A Brief History of Time' ?  Seriously ?

Some unimpressive scores going into FJ.  I can't believe that Lara Logan pulled out the win.

Edited May 18, 2016 by ottoDbusdriver

[Trey]

After the J round and DJ round I expected the FJ of "Countries of the World" to be Name a country, any country.

I can't believe the fellow on the end couldn't even make a guess at Pakistan or Bangladesh or some other country in the area.

19 minutes ago, secnarf said:

Did Alex seriously ask Lara about her being sexually assaulted in the interview portion?! I was pouring tea at the time and actually splashed it on myself in shock when I heard that. 

Thank goodness I didn't listen to the interviews.

That was such a letdown after yesterday's decent game.

[helpmerhonda]

This was one of the worst games I have ever seen. Holy crap that was bad.

[Temperance]

Tuesday's game did seem weak.  I believe the time had gone out by the time Lara said the thing about sports.

22 minutes ago, secnarf said:

Did Alex seriously ask Lara about her being sexually assaulted in the interview portion?! I was pouring tea at the time and actually splashed it on myself in shock when I heard that. 

I, too, was offput by that. I find it a tactless to bring it up just out of the blue.... Hopefully he vetted it with her.  

I liked both of the ladies on Jeopardy. I liked their charities. Cupp was playing for hungry children and Lara for embattled journalists. (Not the formal names of the charities, just the causes.) 

The way Alex asked Cupp about religion it sounded to me like he was hinting at the demise of Christianity, but I can't be sure. I too would have answered that way. According to Wikipedia, Cupp is both a conservative pundit and an atheist (although it she "is open to theism"). As a nonreligious person, she may not be familiar with religion or have much of an interest in it, while having to defend her atheist views to other conservatives.

Jonathan Franzen's latest book has an evil feminist character who makes a man pee sitting down. All of the feminists I know have a "live and let live" policy on bathrooms.

[CarpeDiem54]

23 hours ago, mojoween said:

 

I don't know why this quote box is here or how to get rid of it.  I guess that I don't know how to delete it qualifies me to be on this Tournament of Idiots.

As my Dad used to say, "That was a piss poor excuse for a game."  What a bunch of morons!  Lara couldn't be more annoying if she tried.  I got 12 (yes, 12!) TS and that wasn't all of them.  I missed a few.  And they left half the freaking clues on the board!  FJ was pretty easy.

I need to go down a huge glass of wine to get over this debacle.

[DrScottie]

13 minutes ago, Temperance said:

I, too, was offput by that. I find it a tactless to bring it up just out of the blue.... Hopefully he vetted it with her.

I have to presume it was to promote awareness for the safety of women (and men) journalists and otherwise abroad and gauging from her reaction she knew to expect that beforehand. Otherwise you're right, that's just totally not acceptable. 

FJ, "This country is between India and Afghanistan.Two of you have probably been there." Fortunately, Anderson and Lara got it right. 

Michael Steele: The Clavin response is only appropriate if it's actually a difficult clue or you already won the game.. 

Wow, just an epic fail. 

[mojoween]

Carpe I feel that quote box means you love me.

You knew all of those TS and I bet we knew all of the clues that remained unread as well.

[ottoDbusdriver]

1 minute ago, DrScottie said:

I have to presume it was to promote awareness for the safety of women (and men) journalists and otherwise abroad and gauging from her reaction she knew to expect that beforehand. Otherwise you're right, that's just totally not acceptable. 

FJ, "This country is between India and Afghanistan.Two of you have probably been there." Fortunately, Anderson and Lara got it right. 

Michael Steele: The Clavin response is only appropriate if it's actually a difficult clue or you already won the game.. 

Wow, just an epic fail. 

Good thing these are the "Power Players". </sarcasm>

[dcalley]

I've been looking at Jeopardy gifs because they are all more entertaining than this game was.

[CarpeDiem54]

24 minutes ago, mojoween said:

Carpe I feel that quote box means you love me.

You knew all of those TS and I bet we knew all of the clues that remained unread as well.

I do wuv you.  ;-)

If these clowns are Power Players, then those of us who post here must be Masters of the Universe.  We could answer these clues if we were in comas.

[M. Darcy]

What was that? I'm still flabbergasted.  

[YoureSoUrban]

Michael Steele not knowing Pakistan is criminal.
 

2 hours ago, secnarf said:

Did Alex seriously ask Lara about her being sexually assaulted in the interview portion?! I was pouring tea at the time and actually splashed it on myself in shock when I heard that. 

In Alex's defense, she has put it front and center since it happened. I've never had a high opinion of her anyway and her particularly annoying performance in this tournament sealed it. 

Yesterday's game gave me hope that I could watch this tournament but I can't. I get that it's less intense because they're celebs and playing for charities but the joking around and the long pauses and general goofiness are messing with my pristine view of Jeopardy! LOL  Wake me when it's over...

[secnarf]

2 minutes ago, YoureSoUrban said:

 

In Alex's defense, she has put it front and center since it happened. 

I suppose that is good to know, at least, but I really hope he cleared the topic with her beforehand anyways. Based on some of the contestants' answers, it doesn't seem like they were warned ahead of time otherwise you'd think they'd have more well-thought-out answers.

I had never heard of her, so I didn't know how public she has been about it. Most of the "power players" and "celebrities" don't tend to be very well known in Canada, so for me it's pretty much the same as regular jeopardy but with incredibly easy questions. 

[Bastet]

I just got home and can't decide what to make for dinner.  Perhaps a nice burger made with some Kyoto beef?

What fresh hell was this game?  I was just reading the archive; I cannot imagine actually sitting through it.

I don't really know where to begin with the TS, so I won't.

Disgraceful, all around.  And two of these people are international journalists, working for major news organizations.  It's all fine and dandy when pop culture celebrities turn out to be decidedly uninformed about the world around them, but this ... sickening. 

Forget the dinner, maybe just some Kentucky bourbon -- in honor of one of the few things they knew!

[peeayebee]

Just awful. So many times I was yelling the answer at the TV. As Bugs Bunny would say, What a bunch of maroons.

[irisheyes]

After the fairly entertaining game on Monday, today's game was pathetic.  My 12 year old and 14 year old could have done a better job. 

[Pallida]

I'm hoping Anderson Cooper just doesn't watch Jeopardy and didn't realize the "beef" part of that answer was really a hint. 

[Mumbles]

Lara Logan got suspended for "60 Minutes" for being hoodwinked by a central subject of one of her pieces. Now I understand how that happened. She seemed like a dim bulb.

As crappy as these games can be, I often get farklempt when people describe their charities, and it's nice that these groups are getting money.

Alex is really taking this chit chat to a different level. Yesterday it was a lament to Franzen about how social media is eroding true human interactions. Today it was an allusion to the problems of the GOP, and sexual assault. (And I do think this was okay, Logan talks about this very openly, and I bet it was vetted.)

[Judois]

I got FJ but kept thinking that had to be wrong because it was too easy. 

Please make Alex never say "You go,girl!" again. He sounded stupid and condescending. 

[mojoween]

Anderson tweeted that he was bummed to only win $10K for his charity and he's going to donate the other $40k he would have won so at least that's something good to come out of that slog fest.