Ken Jennings Gets Backlash for Filming 'Jeopardy!' During Hollywood Strike: 'Alex Trebek Would Turn Over in His Grave'

Jeopardy! co-host Ken Jennings has enraged some by opting to continue filming new episodes of the show amid the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

After it was announced that Season 40 would feature returning guests and recycled questions with Jennings as host — costar Mayim Bialik previously walked off set to support the strike — people called out Jennings for not siding with the rest of Hollywood.

"You're a disgrace if you're trying to cross picket lines," one person wrote to him on Twitter. "Alex [Trebek] would NEVER do anything of the sort. He would turn over [in] his grave seeing you act like that."

The former champion responded by reposting an official message that was released by the TV show, which noted Trebek actually did the same thing during a strike in 2007-2008.

However, that didn't stop others from continuing to slam him, with one person telling Jennings of following in Trebek's footsteps, "forge your own path."

Meanwhile, the game show's producer Michael Davies explained on an episode of the "Inside Jeopardy!" podcast why they decided to keep going but bring back old material.

"I believe, principally that it would not be fair to have new contestants. Making their first appearance on the Alex Trebek stage, doing it with non-original material or as we’ll talk about a combination of non-original material and material that was written pre-strike," he shared. "And so we decided that really we needed to invite back and give a second chance in general to players who probably thought that their chance to come back and play on the Alex Trebek stage had gone forever."

"So we’re gonna open the season with a second chance tournament for players from Season 37 who lost their initial game, and winners from that will advance to a Season 37 and Season 38 Champions Wild Card," he noted.

Davis also revealed that for Season 40, they'll be slightly increasing the prize money: the third place prize will move up to $2,000, while the second place prize will be $3,000.

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"This is something that we’ve been working on ever since I really took the reins of the show. It’s something that obviously is discussed widely within our social communities and with the community of our contestants," he spilled. "We understand that post-COVID travel costs have increased. We understand how complicated sort of funding a trip to Jeopardy is for, you know, many contestants within our community."

Season 40 begins airing on Monday, September 11.