[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the January 31 episode of Jeopardy!]
Clues about famous TV shows have Jeopardy! fans questioning the writers room after the Friday, January 31 installment of the 2025 Tournament of Champions. The clues were about Bosch and I Love Lucy, with the former prompting questions about why it’s frequently mentioned and the latter being posed as too easy a clue for a tournament like this. An Alex Trebek-themed TV clue also lost a player money because she failed to make one of the words plural.
The Lucille Ball clue came up in the second round, and the Bosch clue was part of the third Daily Double. The second-round category was “Playing Non-Sports’Ball,’” meaning that the answers to each clue would involve the word ball. The clue, answered correctly by player Allison Gross, was, “She starred as the title character on TV’s No. 1-rated show from October 1952 to April 1955.” This 1,200-point clue being played in Double Jeopardy meant that it was meant to be medium-level difficulty. One viewer thinks this clue was too easy for the tournament.
“Judging the writers,” a fan wrote in their recap of the episode on the Jeopardy! Reddit discussion board on Friday. “Yes, in the ToC, they offered 1,200 for knowing Lucille Ball was the biggest sitcom star of the 50s, after spotting everyone the word ‘Ball.’”
Bosch also came up in this round. It was the 1,600 square in the “What an Artist Dies in Me” category. The clue: “If this northern renaissance painter of wild imagery was alive, he’d ask, ‘A TV cop has my name? & What’s TV?’” The answer, as player Mark Fitzpatrick correctly answered, was, “Who is Bosch?”
A fan on Reddit noted that Bosch gets frequent mentions on the show.