What is the best way to say bye to Trebek? With a final episode
Alex Trebek taped his last episode of “Jeopardy!” on Oct. 29, and he died 10 days later.
That episode will air in Phoenix on Friday at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 3 (KTVK).
Television is a weird medium sometimes. In this case, that’s a good thing. The scheduling meant more of Trebek for a little bit longer.
When an actor or director dies, people often say things like their work will live on after them. Not so much with most game-show hosts. Their work is more ephemeral. So, for that matter, are their shows.
Not Trebek. For one thing, he’d hosted “Jeopardy!” since Sept. 10, 1984. “The end of an era” is an overused phrase. But that’s an exceptionally good run. There are a lot of reasons why, most of them having to do with Trebek.
Why ‘Jeopardy!’ feels like a smarter game show than most
But not all. Playing the game well won’t get you into Mensa or Harvard or anything, but it does feel like a smart person’s game show, the Ivy League choice to the state-school vibe of “Wheel of Fortune.”
If you can come up with the question for, “Subtract a letter from the name of a keystroke found in computer commands and you get this violent reaction to social change,” you feel a little more accomplished than solving for “wish list” when you’ve got the W, S, I, L and T. (The question is, “What is backslash/backlash?”)
Trebek, however, was so associated with the game that it’s impossible to think of it without him. Except now we’ll have to.
It wasn’t always this way. When Trebek took over the show he seemed a little prickly, a little too know-it-all maybe for a guy who had hosted “High Rollers,” among other shows.
But he grew into the role. Somewhere along the line Trebek became not just a well-loved game-show host but a kind of ambassador for intelligence. He was the person with the answers, after all. Or in this case, the questions.
‘Jeopardy!’
7:30 p.m. weekdays on Channel 3 (KTVK).
How the show will go on with Ken Jennings
There’s more to it, though. Television is an intimate medium. We invite the shows into our homes, right into our living rooms. In the case of a game-show host like Trebek, that invitation was extended (or at least available) every weeknight, five times a week. He retained a kind of sneaky snark from the early days of the show, but he wasn’t flashy or outlandish. He was just a steady presence. You missed tonight’s show? There’s always tomorrow’s.
There still will be. Just not with Trebek. Ken Jennings, who holds the record for the longest “Jeopardy” winning streak, will fill in temporarily while the search for a permanent successor continues. Katie Couric reportedly also will fill in.
It really is the end of an era
There’s also something about the way Trebek, who died after a battle with pancreatic cancer, handled his illness. He was a television personality so, naturally, he recorded a video to tell his audience about it. It aired in March of 2019; he handled the announcement with customary grace, humor and straightforward facts. The announcement stunned people, as if a family member had been diagnosed with the disease. He occasionally gave updates on his condition.
When someone has been a part of people’s lives — and it’s not an exaggeration to say that, given Trebek’s long tenure and his popularity — it’s hard to imagine what it will be like without him. Not just the show. It’ll continue, for better or worse. But just in general. There was a comfort, even if you didn’t regularly watch the show, just in knowing it was there if you needed it. And so was Trebek.
No longer. He’ll be missed. And you know what? It really is the end of an era.