Mayim Bialik no longer hosting daytime Jeopardy!

I always get thrown off when people refer to syndicated Wheel or J! as "daytime" because if you say "Daytime Wheel" to me, the first thing that comes to mind is Bob Goen, and "Daytime Jeopardy!" is the official name for the (pointless) daily few-weeks-old rerun feed that most stations air, not necessarily in daytime slots.

On topic, I'm not surprised at this news. I had a feeling she wouldn't be coming back and was surprised she's still pictured in promotional material. This news doesn't really matter to me either way, since I don't watch J! regardless of host, but it is a little sad because, from the bits of Mayim episodes I've seen, I did like how bubbly Mayim was and how she made the game a bit more fun. That being said, I know most people are going to be glad to see her go, but some people in the J! fandom just take it way too far with the hate. I mean, it was her birthday earlier this week, and the comments on J!'s "Happy Birthday, Mayim!" post were filled with disrespect and "Ken is better!!!" Sometimes, it feels like Mayim gets more hate in the J! fandom than Wheel of Fortune does.

Either way, the ratings over the past three years have proved that people watch Jeopardy! for the champions, not the host. It could be hosted by a parrot and it would still rank higher than Wheel solely because social media is following the champion like a soap opera antagonist.

I wouldn’t count on seeing Mayim back on primetime either. It’d be pretty pointless given that Ken already does Masters in Primetime and having her come back to do the celebrity tournament but nothing else wouldn’t make any sense.

This news doesn’t really shock me given that they’ve been making things as Ken centric as possible lately. They’ve been doing a segment on Inside Jeopardy lately where they’ll share voice clips from questions fielded from the audience during tapings. Originally it was from tapings with both Ken and Mayim but now it’s just Ken. Also given the fact that the show will be airing tournaments into early April (all of which hosted by Ken), having her come back after nearly a year away wouldn’t make much sense. It’s a smart move for the franchise overall and gives Ken his official rightful place as THE host of Jeopardy.

I respect Mayim for trying her best in the role, but she just wasn't a great fit and Ken is clearly the better host. I guess maybe she'll come back to do the Celebrity shows again and perhaps another primetime version though.

I'm pretty sure they only kept Mayim around because of her contract. Claire McNear pointed out on Twitter that, while the exact details of her contract are unknown, Alex's contracts typically lasted three seasons. Season 40 would have been Mayim's third.

While I'm disappointed with the news as I did enjoy seeing Mayim host, it's no surprise that Ken's been synonymous with JEOPARDY! since 2004, especially with the fact that he's had 16 years of experience as a contestant from winning his first game to being declared as The Greatest Of All Time JEOPARDY! Champion by the late Alex Trebek, who asked him to be the first guest host before he passed away.

Also seems that Mayim wasn’t going to have her contract renewed after S40 anyway but they offered to let her host the last few months of the season, to which she declined and left the show entirely.

^ The Saturday reruns always go in order for a random number of weeks. Listings show 7/27 is S39 E176 (5/15/23) and they will continue from there for now. If the next season premiere is September 9, there are exactly enough weekends left to go up to S39 E182 (5/23/23) which was the last of Ben Chan's 10 games. Mayim's final hosting period was 5/1-6/30/23.

Are these the only Mayim episodes from S39 that reran on the weekend run this season?