But the real TV story this week has to be the undisputed 25-game reign of Jeopardy! supercontestant Ken Jennings. As of yesterday, the 30-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City had won a total of $788,960, beating the previous record-holder, Tom Walsh, by a margin of over $600,000. Granted, this unprecedented victory streak was also made possible by this season's change in Jeopardy! rules—the term limits have been lifted, as it were, so that the run of a winning contestants may continue indefinitely, instead of being stopped after five consecutive games. But Ken is no mere beneficiary of this loophole in Jeopardy! bylaws; self-deprecating and sweet, the blond, elfin Jennings has host Alex Trebek wrapped around his fast-on-the-buzzer finger. (One evening, the bemused host opened with, "Welcome to the Alex and Ken show," and David Letterman has an ongoing gag in which he speculates that a lovestruck Trebek is helping Jennings cheat.) KenJen has turned the Culver City set into his own private fiefdom.
Watching Ken Jennings play is like witnessing any great athlete in top form: He's the Michael Jordan of trivia, the Seabiscuit of geekdom. Note his systematic habit of moving down the categories vertically, one by one, rather than skipping around the board. His nearly preternatural ability to land on the hidden Daily Doubles. His obscure betting tactics, which, as near as I can divine, are inspired by an obsessive-compulsive need to end each day's winnings with a round figure. His habit of adding some thematic je ne sais quoi to his answers (which, this being Jeopardy!, are of course phrased as questions.) If the topic is a foreign country, he'll answer in that country's accent, and in answer to one clue about hip-hop music, the ultra-white Ken memorably responded, "What is rap, yo?" Like a hot-dogging ball player insisting on his special end-zone touchdown dance, Jennings will no doubt take heat from some viewers for these stylistic quirks, but what the hell? It's show business, of a sort, and KenJen's antics have once again made Jeopardy!—which I hadn't watched regularly since matching wits with my Dad in high school—required viewing.
On the blogs and message boards, KenJen mania has reached a mass so critical that it's now producing a counterphenomenon of Ken Jennings fatigue, even backlash. Pockets of Ken Jennings resistance are springing up everywhere. Not from these quarters, mind you. Surfergirl loves KenJen: his Mormon politeness, his ever-ready applause when his opponent nails a tough question, the Japanese Totoro doll he keeps at his podium as a good-luck charm. Watching him tear through a fresh blue bank of TV screens laden with clues, you're acutely aware of that strange dialectical push-pull created by any extraordinary winning streak. It's like watching someone pitch a no-hitter; you want it to go on forever, yet somehow, you're also praying for his luck to snap. As Ken dispatches row after row of clues with the same even-tempered mastery of every topic from children's literature to mining, it's impossible not to occasionally root for the underdog. At the end of last night's show, Tom, Ken's nearest challenger, had only $400 left, and his written response to the Final Jeopardy question was a limp, indecipherable squiggle. (To be fair, Ken didn't know this one either. But he still had $22,000 left to bet.) Jenny, a tiny, bespectacled woman with a voice like Lisa Simpson's, had pulled off some impressive turnarounds early in the game, but she was no longer even on the board; her balance had gone to zero, forcing her to sit out the final round. Poor Tom had a sad-sack demeanor that was hard to warm up to, but watching Li'l Lisa kick Ken's ass would have provided a feminist thrill.
Of course, the outcome of this epic contest has already been decided; the shows we're watching were taped months ago at Sony Studios in Culver City. But the buzz created by the KenJen juggernaut (which in recent weeks has increased Jeopardy!'s audience by as much as 20 percent), together with the strict secrecy policy imposed on contestants who have finished their run, gives each day's broadcast the suspenseful feel of a live sporting event. I'll keep tuning in every night for the same sick reason as millions of others: If and when KenJen finally does lose, I want to be watching. 2:42 p.m.
Dana Stevens (aka Liz Penn) writes on television for Slate and on film and culture for the High Sign.
