Dr. Oz's baggage is helping undo Jeopardy!'s legacy

Variety

Mehmet Oz's two-week stint as guest-host, which may be Sony Pictures Television's attempt at synergy with The Dr. Oz Show, has given the classic game show a black eye, says Daniel D'Addario. He says Jeopardy! should be the last show to book Dr. Oz, "for whom facts are less important than showmanship — running directly counter to the idea of a show that proudly burnishes its identity as one of the last venues in American life where the truth is paramount. If that aspect of Jeopardy!’s appeal has been somewhat overstated in the past, it felt a bit like rebalancing the scales. After all, Jeopardy!, with its assured, unfashionable resistance to flash, gets thirty minutes a day. Desperate self-promoters for whom the most urgent sort of truth lies in the camera’s gaze get so much of the rest of our media consumption. Oz’s booking is confusing on the merits: There are several daytime hosts who could competently read cards and who have not actively pushed wrongheaded views. Could Oz’s credentials have so effectively gulled a show whose questions are vetted against sources — and whose last host was renowned for his interpersonal skills and not his academic record? (Little wonder past Jeopardy! contestants sound more than anything surprised in a widely-circulated petition of protest.) But it’s outright baffling in light of the amount of energy that has thus far been expended in promoting the Trebek legacy to viewers." D'Addario adds: "Two weeks of Oz is a black eye for Jeopardy!; anything more would be outright destructive to a show that is a part of many millions of Americans’ daily routines. And, worse, it would ultimately be harm inflicted not by Oz, who reporting has shown to seem lost in the camera’s gaze, unconcerned with fact or fiction, but by producers who we might expect to know better. The casting decision will be revealing: Maybe, for all its proclamations about the rewards of knowledge, Jeopardy will show itself to be no different, and no smarter, from the rest of TV."