US Jeopardy is on UK Netflix

By | October 31, 2018

When I heard a few days ago that Netflix in the US has a collection of handpicked Jeopardy episodes up now, I wasn’t expecting them to be on UK Netflix.

But they are! 45 episodes. So there you are.

20 thoughts on “US Jeopardy is on UK Netflix

  1. Gordon G Donaldson

    As I said on Twitter today

    now Netflix UK have a London office for commissioning

    Maybe they should commission Stellify Media to produce a British Jeopardy exclusively for them

    perhaps for an initial 150 or so episode run

    But WHO could be our Alex or Alexandra-as the case may be Trebek

    1. Brandon

      We don’t really have any hosts with a similar style in the UK, that would be the problem.

        1. Chris M. Dickson

          Left-field choice here but I’ve got a little-known up-and-comer who would surely surprise the world by how well he does it: Stephen Mulhern.

          1. Crimsonshade

            If I were Dolph Lundgren, you’d be out of the window by now.

            Talking hypothetically though, I don’t really think Stephen Mulhern would be on Netflix’s radar. Now if it were ITV who took the interest, then you just KNOW he’d be on the shortlist already.

    1. David Bodycombe

      It’s not so much that, but the fact that some 30-minute slot episodes come in at a running time under 20 minutes.

    2. Brandon

      Their breaks are much shorter than ours, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds, but it is very annoying.

      1. Nico W.

        I started watching NFL this season and the ad breaks are really confusing at first, you’re just not used to that (in Germany). And it makes skipping them on your vcr annoyingly tough. But overall I start to prefer lots of short ad breaks instead of those incredibly long ones Prosieben normally has.

  2. Oliver

    I think any new UK version, or international versions, would need a major visual refresh. The show is an institution in the US but the set design and graphics are really tired by modern gameshow standards. It’s still a good format, though, although it feels less vital in a country where there are plenty of gameshow choices that aren’t horribly over-produced and there are a decent amount of tricky rapid-fire quizzes.

    Whether it’s Jeopardy or otherwise, I could see it making sense for Netflix to develop a standard quiz format which they can make localised versions across each of their territories – game shows are relatively inexpensive to make and are pretty universal in terms of appeal. In particular, Jeopardy would seem to be pretty good format for doing that – it’s pretty simple conceptually, it’s incredibly cheap to make, it’s already proven successful in some major territories, the brand has some cachet, and there’s not a huge amount of international versions currently on air. If you wanted to create a game show where you intended to create a dozen localised versions in as many languages, Jeopardy seems like the ideal format for doing that.

    I notice that the episodes on Netflix are Tournament of Champions from 2013(!), so Sony are being somewhat cagey about what episodes they’re making available. I’m not sure what to read into that.

    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Apparently they’re the same ones currently offered on Hulu.

      I suspect Jeopardy is successful in the US because of momentum, it’s an institution. But if it was a new show starting today I think it would struggle. As you suggest, lots of international versions, but not many that have lasted.

    2. Brandon

      One of the reasons why Jeopardy wouldn’t work in the UK is because it’s only half an hour long with no real way to pad it out to an hour, and half-hour shows haven’t really existed here for about 10 years.

      1. David

        There is an hour-long format for Jeopardy actually (they did it a few years ago in the Middle East)- they added a Triple Jeopardy round (triple values, 2 Daily Doubles, but only 4 categories).

  3. Brekkie

    Talking of on demand quiz shows did Virgin ever add anything else to their gameshow on demand service they launched when they fell out with UKTV?


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