How long is Mayim Bialik hosting ‘Jeopardy!’? And what about Ken Jennings?

Mike Richards hosted his last episode of “Jeopardy!” on Friday. Now the show returns to guest hosts as it searches for Alex Trebek’s replacement.

Beginning Monday, Sept. 20, 2021, sitcom star Mayim Bialik will host several weeks of "Jeopardy!"Read moreCourtesy Jeopardy Productions, I

by Rob Tornoe

Published Sept. 20, 2021, 8:26 a.m. ET

At the end of Friday’s Jeopardy!, new host Mike Richards thanked the show’s staff for continuing Alex Trebek’s legacy and signed off with, “Have a great weekend. We’ll see you Monday.”

There’s just one problem — he’s not coming back.

Sitcom star Mayim Bialik will return to Jeopardy! as a guest host this week after Richards resigned last month over sexist comments and offensive language he made on an old podcast, which were uncovered by the Ringer (he filmed for one day — five episodes — before stepping down). Richards was also subsequently removed as executive producer of both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune by Sony Entertainment Television.

Bialik, known for her roles in hit TV shows Blossom and The Big Bang Theory, is hosting several weeks of new episodes that will air through Nov. 5. After that, Ken Jennings — who holds the show’s title of “Greatest of All Time” — will also return as a guest host. According to Sony, the two will split hosting duties as their schedules allow through the end of the year.

Meanwhile, executives at Sony are continuing their search for Trebek’s permanent replacement. Bialik has been named as the host on the show’s prime time specials, while Jennings is a consultant on the show and was passed over despite seeming like a shoe-in. According to the New York Times, Jennings was gifted a pair of Trebek’s cuff links from his widow, Jean, prior to his first taping as a guest host.

One guest host who won’t be back is former Star Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton, who said he’s no longer that keen on the job after being passed over.

“The crazy thing is that when you set your sights on something, they say be careful of what you wish for, because what I found out is that it wasn’t the thing that I wanted after all,” Burton told Trevor Noah on Thursday’s episode of The Daily Show. “What I wanted was to compete. I mean, I wanted the job, right, but then, when I didn’t get it, it was, like ‘Well, OK, what’s next?’ ”

Current Jeopardy! champion Matt Amodio, a Ph.D. student from New Haven, Conn., extended his win streak Monday to 24 games. So far, Amodio has won $857,001, the third most from regular games in the show’s history behind Jennings ($2,520,700) and James Holzhauer ($2,462,216).

On Monday, Amodio defeated Carlo Angiuli, a postdoctoral researcher from Pittsburgh, and Tracy Pitzel, an accountant from Ellensburg, Wash.

One thing viewers have picked up on about Amodio is he doesn’t answer every clue with that traditional “What is …” Instead, he has shorted it to “What’s …”

“So, I know the rules of Jeopardy! I have watched a lot of Jeopardy! And I have seen rulings on individual questions here and there. So, I have known from experience what is acceptable and what is not,” Amodio said in an interview on the Jeopardy! website. “I went about the approach of saying the fewer things to think about, the better. If you have a moving part, that moving part can go wrong and so I found the simplest, most repeatable approach I could and went with it.”