Colin Jost’s ‘Pop Culture Jeopardy!’ Is Already Annoying Die-Hard Fans As Much As Mayim Bialik Did

It wouldn’t be a Jeopardy! news story in the 2020s if it didn’t piss off half of the Jeopardy! fandom.

When the great Alex Trebek passed away in November 2020 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, the game show world was united in mourning for one of the clearest voices and most masterful hosts that trivia TV has ever seen. Then, almost immediately, a fracturing began. After 36 years of smooth sailing under Trebek, Jeopardy! suddenly had a power vacuum, one that Jeopardy! executive producer Mike Richards attempted to fill by awarding himself the hosting gig, just to get fired a week later. 

After longtime Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings and divisive sitcom star Mayim Bialik took turns vying for the top job from 2021 to 2023, the dust finally settled with Jennings as the show’s permanent host, and the greater Jeopardy! community found peace — until now.

This week, Amazon launched its newest Jeopardy! spin-off, Pop Culture Jeopardy!, hosted by Saturday Night Live veteran Colin Jost, and the response from some die-hard Jeopardy! fans and from hard-ass Jeopardy! critics would make you think that Bialik and Richards just took over the main show and turned into Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. 

In one particularly negative review from USA Today’s Kelly Lawler, titled, “'Pop Culture Jeopardy!' Is a Disgrace to the 'Jeopardy!' Name,” the Jeopardy!-loving TV critic wrote, “I don’t know who the audience for this monstrous mashup is supposed to be, but it’s certainly not people who like Jeopardy! or popular culture.” 

Lawler heavily criticized the spin-off for making unnecessary changes to the tried-and-true Jeopardy! formula, including the decision to group contestants into teams of three and the addition of belabored “Triple Plays” in which Jost forces the trios to each answer one-third of the same question.

As for Jost’s performance as the Pop Culture Jeopardy! host, Lawler wasn’t nearly as charmed by the Weekend Update star as was Scarlett Johansson. “Jost ends up adding a lot of filler to each round,” she wrote. “He’s fine when he’s just reading the clues, but he should save his jokes for ‘Weekend Update.’”

Slate's Luke Winkie had a similar reaction to the premiere of Pop Culture Jeopardy! as Lawler, with Winkie lamenting in his review, “Alas, at the dawn of America’s new dark age, the powers that be have chartered a newer, and much dumber version of Jeopardy!” Winkie was especially critical of how the show strives to be the easiest-possible version of Jeopardy!, noting that the usual dopamine hit viewers get from answering a question correctly before the contestants buzz in has been supplanted by something darker. 

“Somehow, after every correct response — rattled off with astonishing literacy — I began to feel worse about myself, like I was being bludgeoned by the weight of all the things I don’t know,” Winkie wrote. “Yes, I had evacuated my brain of botany, trigonometry and Dostoyevsky in favor of an instinctual retrieval of a TikTok trend. We’re winning, but at what cost?”

As for the fan response, plenty of Pop Culture Jeopardy! fans have expressed their appreciation for the more casual, playful approach to the formula — and plenty of Jeopardy! traditionalists are treating Jost like he’s tap-dancing on Trebek’s grave. “Some people might say pop culture jeopardy is easier than regular jeopardy, but regular jeopardy contestants don’t have to pretend to laugh at Colin Jost’s jokes,” one viewer wrote on Twitter.

“watching pop culture jeopardy and colin jost is charming me because his energy is ‘man who wants to blow his brains out,’” another Twitter user wrote.

One more added simply: