Jeopardy! launched Season 40 in syndication on September 11, 2023, with Ken Jennings hosting and a Second Chance competition featuring returning contestants. The writers’ strike had disrupted the show’s planned opening: instead of relying on a normal slate of newly prepared clues and first-time players, producers used a mix of pre-strike WGA-written material and clues brought back from earlier seasons.
Why did the strike change the Season 40 opening?
In May 2023, Mayim Bialik stepped away from hosting the remaining Season 39 episodes during the writers’ strike, and Jennings finished those episodes. As the strike continued, the production faced a practical problem for Season 40: it had limited fresh material for a new season.
Executive producer Michael Davies said the show would use a combination of WGA-written clues prepared before the strike and clues redeployed from previous seasons. That was not the same as saying every clue was old, or that new episodes would not air. First-run Season 40 episodes began in September as scheduled, but the opening format changed.
Davies also said producers did not think it was fair to ask first-time contestants to compete with non-original or mixed pre-strike material. He explained that it “would not be fair to have new contestants making their first appearance on the Alex Trebek stage doing it with non-original material or a combination of non-original material and material that was written pre-strike.” He described the chosen approach as the “most optimal solution” under the circumstances. CBS News reported Davies’s explanation on August 8, 2023.
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What happened when Season 40 premiered?
The season opened with a Season 37 Second Chance event, bringing back players who had lost their first games. The official premiere announcement counted 27 returning contestants across three week-long mini-tournaments. It was a different way to start the season, not a cancellation or a pause in first-run episodes.
Returning players had already experienced the contest, while the format avoided placing first-time contestants in the position Davies described. The event therefore addressed both the shortage of newly prepared material and the producers’ fairness concern.
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Why did consolation prizes increase?
For the Second Chance tournament, second place paid $3,000 and third place paid $2,000. Davies said the increases were intended to help contestants meet rising travel costs in the period after COVID-19 disruptions. CBS News reported the amounts and Davies’s explanation in 2023.
How was the Season 39 postseason different?
The Season 40 September opener is easy to confuse with another Second Chance competition that aired later. The latter belonged to Season 39: the show announced that its Second Chance tournament would begin December 19, 2023, with 36 returnees competing across four weekly competitions. Each weekly winner advanced to Champions Wildcard. The official announcement identifies it as the Season 39 postseason event.
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| Event | When | Contestants and structure |
|---|---|---|
| Season 40 opening Second Chance | Season premiered September 11, 2023 | 27 Season 37 returnees in three week-long mini-tournaments, according to the official premiere announcement. |
| Season 39 Second Chance postseason | Began December 19, 2023 | 36 returnees across four weekly competitions, according to the official announcement. |
What to know about Jennings and viewing now
Jennings’s hosting role in the 2023 return followed Bialik’s strike-era departure from the remaining Season 39 duties. The show’s official About page identifies Jennings as host and Michael Davies as executive producer, and credits the writers with crafting the clues.
Viewing arrangements can change by season and country. In a September 4, 2025 announcement about Season 42, Sony said episodes would continue to air first on local U.S. affiliates, with next-day streaming on Peacock, Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ in the United States, and Crave in Canada. Sony called streaming new episodes a milestone for the program. Those are date- and territory-specific details, not a guarantee of availability for every season or at a later date. Sony’s Season 42 announcement gives the arrangements it described then.
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