Let’s meet today’s contestants:

– Frank, a biomedical engineer from New Jersey, is hard to beat at Jeopardy! at home;
– Carolyn, a poet-writer from Massachusetts, whose grandmother appeared on the Art Fleming version; and
– Jason, a math teacher from New Mexico, had never heard of astronaut Alan Bean. Jason is a eight-day champ with winnings of $192,100.

Champ Jason had $14,000 at the first commercial break while both opponents were in the red and cruised to another runaway at $35,000 vs. $4,600 for Carolyn and $2,400 for Frank.

DD1, $600 – NUMERIC LIT – The cover of the first edition of this 1961 military novel included a dancing figure & a little airplane (Jason doubled his score of $5,400, although he didn’t “do the push”.)

DD2, $1,600 – CLASSICAL DANCE – Jean-Baptiste Lully pioneered music for this dance whose name, from the Latin for “small”, comes from its small, dainty steps (Jason lost $3,000 from his total of $26,000.)

DD3, $1,200 – THAT PLACE USED TO BE CALLED… – St. Petersburg used to be called Leningrad; similarly, Volgograd used to be called by this name (Jason won $6,000 from his score of $27,000.)

FJ – CHILDREN’S BOOKS – The original title of this 1900 classic originally included a gem; another working title mentioned a plains state

Jason and Frank were correct, with Jason adding $6,143 to win with $41,143 for a nine-day total of $233,243.

This day in Trebekistan: Alex mentioned James three times today, which makes a total of four James references this season so far.

Clue selection strategy: We’ve gotten to the point that when third-place Carolyn started DJ by choosing a clue from the top row, it felt super-weird.

One more thing: I believe this was the first time that a past contestant interview clip was recycled into the basis for a clue.

Correct Qs:
DD1 – What is “Catch-22”?
DD2 – What is the minuet?
DD3 – What is Stalingrad?
FJ – What is The (Wonderful) Wizard of Oz?