‘Jeopardy!” Fans Are Having Mixed Reactions to Mayim Bialik Taking Over as Temporary Host

Jeopardy! Season 38 is on its way—and so is our second round of Jeopardy! guest hosts.

Yesterday, the Jeopardy! team announced that Mayim Bialik, who was originally slated to share the gig with Mike Richards, will step up to the plate as the first in a new series of temporary guest hosts. Bialik is scheduled to tape three weeks of episodes, meaning fifteen episodes total. After her fifteen episodes air, Bialik, a neuroscientist and actress best known for Blossom and The Big Bang Theory, will return to her main Jeopardy! gig: handling primetime specials and spin-offs, like the upcoming Jeopardy! National College Championship. Meanwhile, following Mike Richards’ disgraced exit, the show will line up other as-yet unannounced guest hosts to take the baton from Bialik.

For some Jeopardy! viewers, Bialik was always their horse in the permanent host race, so her temporary ascension to the nightly podium is welcome news. For others, Bialik isn’t so different from Richards, in that she too comes with her own share of backlash. Outraged viewers have pointed to Bialik’s controversial history of vaccine skepticism as disqualification for the gig; TV critic and journalism professor Jeff Jarvis tweeted, “Mayim Bialik, though vaccinated, spreads vaccine doubt and hawks brain quackery. She is no representative for a show about facts and authority.” Others pointed to a New York Times op-ed she penned in 2017 about the survivors of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse, describing Bialik’s arguments as victim-blaming.

Is your head spinning yet? That’s okay—Jeopardy!’s game of permanent host musical chairs is a lot to take in. Maybe they should give up on the quiz format and just play musical chairs forever. In any case, we’ve sifted through some of the best tweets about Bialik’s ascension, to help you make sense of what’s going on.