Is Jeopardy usually so uncompetitive?

Its no longer about being qualified or intelligent. Bigot!

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I’ve watched a few times in the past couple weeks

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That's after they'd finished their last champions battles. In the couple of weeks they ran those, scores were pretty competitive.

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I’ve watched a few times in the past couple weeks and it’s always been a landslide victory. Nothing like how it used to be.

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You are not wrong.

(full disclosure-- was on Jeopardy! in 2013.)

Jeopardy! has gone through a LOT of changes since 2020. You had the death of Alex Trebek. Then after a farce merry-go-round of guest hosts, you had the new producer basically give himself the host job, then get canned (thankfully, even though it was via cancel culture).

COVID and modern processes have also changed things. No more scheduled Jeopardy! tests, now it's online anytime testing. No in-person regional group audition/interviews either; they are now done online via Zoom individually.

Behind the scenes, the show also lost its longtime director Glenn Kagan and more importantly, its fantastic contestant coordinator, Maggie Speak.

As a result, I see a very different contestant mix. Rather than "the cream of the crop" obtained through a rigorous winnowing process, you have a much more average and open field, which makes the pretty good Jeopardy! contestants score that much better and allows them to have more runaway games and multi-day champions.

And I have no doubt that in the last couple of years there has been a move towards "equity" and "diversity" in terms of contestant selection, which will of course affect a game that is based on ability (albeit that ability being knowledge and speed of recall).

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And I have no doubt that in the last couple of years there has been a move towards "equity" and "diversity" in terms of contestant selection, which will of course affect a game that is based on ability (albeit that ability being knowledge and speed of recall).

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It has always been my dream to get on Jeopardy!, but I started to feel this worry even back when they put the option to add a picture online to your sign-up profile. I know it's a random selection after the test, but after getting 35+ questions right multiple times and no callback, I started thinking conspiracy. I'm too WASPY looking for the woke.