"Jeopardy!" Viewers Outraged After Episode Is Abruptly Cut Short
The show ended early and Wheel of Fortune started playing.
When it comes to game show fanbases, Jeopardy! easily has one of the most devoted. Viewers love to debate gameplay, contestants, strategy, and the trivia questions themselves. So, when any part of the game is interrupted, it's likely to ruffle some feathers—and that's exactly what happened for certain Jeopardy! fans on Tuesday night. Read on to find out why one recent episode was abruptly cut short.
READ THIS NEXT: Jeopardy! Producer Apologizes for "Horrible" On-Air Mistake: "We Blew It."
Viewers in Florida missed out on the last few minutes of Jeopardy!
On April 11, viewers in central Florida missed out on seeing how Final Jeopardy! played out, Newsweek reported. The standard 30-minute Jeopardy! episode (which airs at 7 p.m. EST) ended three minutes early on WFTV 9, an ABC-affiliate based in Orlando.
Much to viewers' chagrin, they didn't see the final answers or who was crowned the winner, and instead saw the start of Wheel of Fortune.
They commiserated on Twitter.
Social media was, of course, where viewers went to air their grievances.
"ABC Network strikes again! They cut off Jeopardy just before Final Jeopardy and started Wheel of Fortune 3 minutes early! Did anyone else see this?" a viewer tweeted on April 11.
In response, a fellow viewer confirmed that they too missed out on the last clue. "Yes! Came to Twitter to make sure it [wasn't] just me!"
Another griped that there may have been no Final Jeopardy!, but there were "plenty of commercials."
More fans chimed in to question WFTV. "@Jeopardy watching in Florida on @WFTV and wheel of fortune started early. We didn't see final jeopardy. What's up?" a fan tweeted on April 11.
Yet another wrote, "Uhh my local affiliate just skipped Final Jeopardy and started Wheel of Fortune early????"
Best Life reached out to Cox Media Group, which owns WFTV, for comment on the error, and will update the story with their response.
RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter.
Jeopardy! recently came under fire for a major editing error.
While this flub appears to be on the part of the local television station, Jeopardy! recently made headlines for mistakes of its own.
During the High School Reunion Tournament two-day final last month, Jackson Jones, Justin Bolsen, and Maya Wright were facing off, with the first day of the last round airing on March 8. At the beginning of the episode, however, viewers were surprised to see that the contestants' final scores were already displayed—before they answered any questions.
Everything started off normal, as Mayim Bialik congratulated each of the players for making it this far and reminded them of the $100,000 at stake. It wasn't until the camera panned to the contestants that fans realized their final scores were front and center.
Viewers were frustrated by the editing flub, leaving some wondering whether they'd somehow missed a day of the tournament.
"I was so confused!! I thought I missed a day and this was day two of a TWO DAY TOTAL POINT AFFAIR," one viewer tweeted, while another questioned how such a large error didn't get flagged in the editing process.
Production explained what happened, and apologized.
Thankfully, the tournament as a whole wasn't a bust, since the players had a final face-off on March 9. Still, production was compelled to address the situation.
"We totally blew it at the top of the show," executive producer Michael Davies said during a March 13 episode of the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. "We made a horrible error, where we revealed the final scores at the end in the opening cutaway shot during Mayim's monologue."
Davies said the glaring mistake occurred due to a "series of errors," made after production reshot Bialik's opener. He added that the scores are supposed to be taken back to the original level whenever they need to re-film, "but it didn't happen."
The producer pledged to do better and said there was "no excuse for the error." To prevent similar errors in the future, Davies confirmed new protocols have been put in place.
"We live and learn, and we apologize for anyone whose experience of this program was ruined," he said. "We take these mistakes to heart so hard—the self-flagellation that happens across the senior management team and post-team and everybody involved. That's a good thing about Jeopardy!, we take mistakes really, really seriously."
