‘Jeopardy!’ Is Testing Out A Big Change This Week, But How Will Fans React?

When Celebrity Jeopardy! premieres this week, fans are going to notice the show has made a (hopefully) welcomed change to the way categories are presented. If they react strongly enough, the changes could make their way to the regular version of Jeopardy!, which has already kicked off its season.

According to showrunner Michael Davies, the change came about from his longtime goal of somehow keeping “the category on the screen when the clues are shown.” Unfortunately, that’s not easy to do without distracting from the clue itself, but now, Davies thinks they may have finally found a solution.

Via TV Insider:

“Sometimes the show moves so fast that you lose track of the category we’re in… so we’ve tried a new thing,” Davies said on the latest episode of the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. “I’m not gonna try to describe it too much because describing it, when you see it, you’ll instantly understand, but it’s a way that you get to focus much more on the individual categories every single time that a category is being chosen.”

He added that this new addition will give viewers a better sense of “what the experience is for the actual contestants and for the producers in the studio watching the show.”

Should the new category changes prove popular with fans, it could be implemented on regular Jeopardy! down the road. However, in an effort to stave off testy fans, Davies reiterated that the traditional Jeopardy! has not been altered. The category change is only happening on Celebrity Jeopardy! for the time being, and it could very easily stop there.

“We by no means are committed to go and do this on the regular show,” Davies said. “We’ve actually debuted the regular Monday-through-Friday Jeopardy! and we haven’t included this change. But we’re interested, as we try to make the show more engaging and more easy to follow for a broader audience, as well as to satisfy our very top-notch, most-experienced viewers who have been watching the show and enjoying it for years.”