Mike Richards begins his one-week Jeopardy! hosting stint with no mention of the behind-the-scenes scandal

Variety

Richards' week of shows to kick off Season 38 was taped on Aug. 19, one day after Claire McNear's The Ringer investigative story on his offensive past and one day before he stepped down as host. "The torrent of bad news for Richards had not yet overcome him at the taping," says Daniel D'Addario. "But the host felt, still, as though he was already edging towards his own disappearance on his very first day. This lends a sense either of a hasty cutting job or of a new host who felt, justifiably, anything but secure in the role. Up top, Richards either made no explicit reference to the show’s changing of the guard, or any such reference was edited out. A video piece depicted the dedication of the Jeopardy! set as the 'Alex Trebek Stage' on the Sony lot, and Richards’ 'So, for the first time, from the Alex Trebek stage,' let’s play Jeopardy!, was the only plainspoken indication that Richards as host was not the way it had always been. In his guest-host tenure of two weeks, Richards had ended every episode with a verbose tribute to Trebek; this time, he just said: 'What an incredible way to kick off the season! Let’s do it again tomorrow. Hope to see you then. No reference was made, either, to the fact that Richards as host was not what would always be — that, at the end of this week (and of what had been a single tape day), he would be ushered off the show’s stage for good. It’s hard to imagine a graceful way for the show to have set the table for his eventual disappearance, but Jeopardy!’s botched handling of the host selection, utterly destroying any goodwill built by a fun and exciting procession of guest hosts, has indicated gracefulness is not in the show’s post-Trebek repertoire anyhow. Presumably the show is white-knuckling this week: It cannot not air the Richards episodes, as developments in returning mega-champion Matt Amodio’s ongoing gameplay happened on them that cannot be restaged." ALSO: Jeopardy! fans slam the show for ignoring the Richards scandal.