Meet the biggest loser
LeVar Burton's highly anticipated debut as Jeopardy! guest host featured perhaps the worst performance in the game show's history — but it didn't come from the aspiring host. The honours belonged to Patrick Pearce, a product specialist from Calif., who ended the show at a record-setting $7,400 in the red.
While their experiences diverged dramatically — Burton got fairly positive reviews — the two men had something in common: an aspiration to set foot on the Jeopardy! stage.
Pearce said he grew up watching Jeopardy! “So it was an absolute privilege and honour getting to be on that stage, and especially with someone like LeVar hosting,” Pearce wrote in an email.
Burton shared a similar sentiment with the audience.
“As a longtime viewer of the show, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to guest host Jeopardy! and I'm proud to be here to honour Alex's legacy,” said Burton, the star of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Burton was just beginning his week as guest host when Pearce ended his historic Jeopardy! run with 10 correct answers and 11 incorrect answers, according to The Jeopardy! Fan, a site that tracks the game show's statistics. Pearce's final question came with a photo of a house in Dublin and an explanation that it was used by president John Kennedy's sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, the former U.S. ambassador to Ireland.
Shaking his head, Pearce could not say where the house was located, and his score dropped to negative $7,400, surpassing Stephanie Hull's negative $6,800 score from 2015, Entertainment Weekly reported.
Nevertheless, Burton's debut appeared to be a hit, with fans expressing their support online. “Great job!!! It appears to be a natural fit. He's only going to get better and better!” one fan tweeted.
Salon.com's television critic, Melanie McFarland, wrote that Burton got off to a “shaky” start, noting he stumbled a few times but that it “emphasize(d) Burton's humanity. “It proves that seasoned veterans still get opening night jitters,” she continued. “Moreover it also (shows) how badly Burton wants this job.”
In April, Burton was “overjoyed” when Sony Pictures Entertainment selected him to be a guest host, alongside big names like Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and former cohost of Today, Katie Couric. The selection followed a petition, now signed more than 260,000 times, that made the case for Burton as the best choice.
“Between hosting 21 seasons of the educational Reading Rainbow, playing the brainiac engineer Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and filling the roll of Kunta Kinte in the ever important miniseries Roots, LeVar Burton has inspired and shaped the minds of several generations of trivia-loving nerds,” the petition reads.
Burton told The Associated Press he's a “preternaturally optimistic person.”
“If I don't get the gig, it's not immaterial, but it certainly is secondary. I got what I was after. The chance — get me in the room.”