Mayim Bialik hosts ABC’s “Jeopardy! National College Championship” starting Tuesday, Feb. 8.
Not only has Mayim Bialik become fundamental to “Jeopardy!,” she’s become it across multiple platforms.
The actress and (as her commercial endorsements frequently remind) neurobiologist is sharing hosting duties with Ken Jennings on the syndicated weeknight version of the iconic game show, and she also was hired to preside over special ABC editions of the contest. The first of those — a national college championship involving students from 36 schools — will air Tuesdays through Fridays, Feb. 8-22.
“They’re kids from all different backgrounds, a really awesome and diverse group,” the friendly Bialik says. “This might be their first experience of putting themselves out there like this. We basically do it like March Madness; there’s a bracket, and we go through it and get down to a winner. And it’s intense and exciting.”
Dealing with younger players puts a different spin on “Jeopardy!” for Bialik, who claims, “The adult contestants make me feel like I don’t know anything! Then, when you have people who literally could be your children and they already have this amount of knowledge, it’s pretty phenomenal. I might have had an easier time with some of them in the interviews, because their vernacular is more like my kids’, and that’s more how I’m used to talking.”
With “Jeopardy!” in all its forms, Bialik stresses there are “rules and regulations, and they’re being adhered to in the strictest way. We’re tested every day, and we’re masked except when the cameras roll. And we still have to maintain a frustrating amount of distance from each other. It’s definitely a challenge to do the job this way.”
Taping “Jeopardy!” basically has comprised one week of each month for Bialik, with the other three weeks devoted to making her Fox sitcom “Call Me Kat,” now airing its second season on Thursdays. Also during her “Jeopardy!” production weeks, she works on her podcast, “Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown.”
“It’s a lot,” Bialik acknowledges. “At 46, it’s definitely different than when I was 36 or 26. There’s been a bit of a reassignment for me as to how much I need to have my hand in things all the time, and also in trusting people to do their jobs so that I can do mine.”
Those around Bialik, particularly her two sons, have noticed how much her workload has gone up. “I was on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for nine years, and that schedule was a well-oiled machine, so I was not working the kind of hours I’m working now,” she reflects. “They know that ‘Jeopardy!’ is a very big deal, and that I’m getting recognized more now.”
