TV

Jeopardy! recap for Mon., Jan. 4

Here are today’s contestants:

  • Teal, a lawyer, got a grant to study psycholinguistics;
  • David, a high school English teacher, had done well in quiz bowls with his now-lost pen; and
  • Brayden, a policy intern, works on criminal justice reform. Brayden is a four-day champ with winnings of $97,799.

David made a $10,000 wager on DD3 but appeared to forget the category, which helped Brayden take the lead into FJ with $23,800 vs. $14,800 for David and $5,000 for Teal.

DD1 – $600 – GEOGRAPHIC ETYMOLOGY – Early Spanish settlers gave this South American city a name meaning “fair winds” (Brayden won $5,200 on a true DD.)

DD2 – $1,200 – 3-NAMERS IN AMERICAN HISTORY – In 1871 this inventor began teaching instructors of the deaf in the Boston area (David won $6,400 on a true DD vs. $12,600 for Brayden.)

DD3 – $800 – -OLOGIES – Ethnology is a branch of this -ology that is closely related to sociology (David responded with “races” and lost $10,000 from his score of $21,200 vs. $17,400 for Brayden.)

FJ – LITERARY CHARACTERS OF THE 1600s – When the title character tells him that a great adventure may win him an island he can govern, he leaves his family

Everyone was incorrect on FJ. Brayden dropped $5,801 to win with $17,999 for a five-day total of $115,798.

That’s way before our time: No one took a guess that the comedy star whose first full-length feature, 1914’s “Tillie’s Punctured Romance”, was Charlie Chaplin.

This day in shilling: The movie clip that accompanied the clue with Ryan Reynolds felt like it was never going to end.

Christmas in January: Because this episode was intended to air two weeks ago, we heard a heartfelt holiday message from Alex, along with categories about Christmas-themed Broadway shows and December 21.

Correct Qs: DD1 – What is Buenos Aires? DD2 – Who was Alexander Graham Bell? DD3 – What is anthropology? FJ – Who is Sancho Panza?

Judging the writers: Note that all three players responded to FJ with a title character (Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver), while the clue wanted a character other than the title one. Perhaps it would have helped if the FJ clue opened: “When he was told by the title character…”