Some fans of Jeopardy! have noticed an unfortunate trend lately that tends to give the game away when they’re paying close enough attention — the contestant portraits shared on the show’s official website sometimes indicate who’ll win the evening’s game.
On Reddit, a new fan thread demanded, “Dear Jeopardy Web Team: Stop Giving Away Game Results With the Incorrect Clothes On Winning Contestant Portraits…. It’s dumb and bad and it’s happened at least twice this week. Stop it or be shunned.”
This topic spawned some serious debate amongst fans about whether fans who are that eagle-eyed about these outfits should just steer clear of the website, with one commenter saying, “Here’s an idea: if something like this upsets you that much, stop going to places that might upset you before you watch the show.” Meanwhile, another fully agreed with the original poster, writing, “Yes please! I can’t go on the website anymore because of this!”
Another user tried to debunk the theory, claiming they had first-hand experience to the contrary. “Come on, people. Get a life. It doesn’t always give it away though. In my experience, I took my contestant portrait in the outfit I was planning on wearing and then they asked me to change to something else before I taped later that day. I did go on to win a few times, but even if I hadn’t, the portrait was a different outfit than my first episode,” the commenter wrote.
The issue was fresh in fans’ minds, of course, because some fans felt that the web photos of the night’s contestants spoiled the fact that ER doctor Amy Hummel walked away from the night victorious with a 1-day total of $18,900.
In a thread dedicated to the April 24 episode, a user wrote, “They did the outfit giveaway AGAIN,” to which another wrote, “Literally why can they not just take the pictures at the start of the tape day like they’ve always done it, it’s so annoying.”
On a lighter note, contestant Paul Drake, who came in second with $17,201, gave a behind-the-scenes look at his experience on Wednesday’s episode, sharing a comically posed photo of himself with host Ken Jennings and explaining, “I had to post my new life highlight. There was some sort of camera malfunction during my picture with Ken and he suggested it was because we were too handsome. I asked if we should Blue Steel for the next one and he obliged creating what may be my favorite picture ever.”
Coming in third place for the evening was, of course, the previous night’s winner, Mark Lashley, who ended the game with $9,401 — a far cry from his Tuesday night total of $17,601.
Jeopardy!, weeknights, check local listings