DANGER! star Adriana Harmeyer ended this season’s dry spell on Wednesday with her first six-day winning streak, $136,100 total and plenty of fan enthusiasm.
Spectators were thrilled with Adriana’s achievement, but perplexed by opponent Allee Mead’s mistake, which may have cost her the game.
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The Purdue, Indiana professor and archivist faced off against Allee and Kyle Sorlie Titlow.
Host Ken Jennings, 49, began by praising Adriana’s “practically perfect” victory in the previous episode.
He warned that no player had won six wins this season, suggesting that Adriana could be chosen.
In fact, Adriana, who accompanied five-day champions Alison Betts and Dr Amy Hummel, achieved what her colleagues could not – although the sixth victory was not without drama.
After Danger! round, Adriana led with $5,800, followed by Kyle with $1,600, and Allee, who won the first Daily Double, was right behind with $5,400.
Ken commented to his challenger, who was pressuring her, “You ran hard there!”
In Double Jeopardy!, Adriana encountered both Daily Doubles, winning $2,000 in one and losing the same amount in the other.
With 22 correct answers and only 2 incorrect answers, she maintained a runaway lead at $19,400, Allee had $9,400 and Kyle had $2,400.
The last danger! The clue in “BRITISH PLACES” read: “This city owes much of its early history to a temple dedicated to Sulis Minerva and a ‘sacred spring’ found there.”
Everyone responded correctly with “Bath,” and Adriana added just $500 – Ken noted her limited wiggle room – ending up with $19,900 for a six-day total.
“You broke the six-game curse!” Ken was happy while Adriana smiled with pride.
‘ASTONISHED…’
Fans took to social media, also rejoicing in Adriana’s milestone but questioning Allee’s strategy.
Allee chose not to comment on the final three questions, resulting in Triple Stumpers.
If she had answered just one, she could have challenged Adriana on Final Jeopardy! and possibly won.
“Could second place have broken the lock with a correct answer on Clue 60 and not realized they needed to guess?” one Redditor speculated in a game thread.
“I’m surprised that Allee didn’t make it a priority to remember the scores and recognize how close she was to making Final Jeopardy!
“I was screaming at the TV in the last two tracks”, said a third viewer.
“It’s possible that Allee was fully aware of the situation but hadn’t even guessed any of the clues. But even then, just call and hope you find something (and at last – guess a president!).”
Despite the criticism, others celebrated Adriana’s victory, as the icy archivist now has the longest hitting streak of the year.
“Adriana is a sneaky and ice-cold player,” wrote another. “She’s not hunting DD much and isn’t very aggressive with her bets, but on DJ’s end, she has a wild game!
“Just pure buzzer ability and huge knowledge base. I hope she continues her trajectory, I’d love to see how far she can take it!”
One reviewer argued: “This leaves it open for others to capture the DDs… at least find them and bet low if you don’t like the category!
One more argued: “I think she’s playing smart. By Double Jeopardy, it’s been clear that she can beat the other contestants on knowledge or buzzer, or both. So she can hedge her bets a bit on DDs, so May it give you a better chance of recovering from a failure.”
Alison Betts kindly wrote in the thread: “I would like to nominate Adriana to be captain of the ToC A team.”
So far, the other qualifiers for the next ToC (all women) are five-day winners Alison and Dr. Amy Hummel, and Lisa Ann Walter from Celebrity Jeopardy!
That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely enter the fray as well.
HARMEYER ON FIRE
Adriana, an art archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana, has been going strong since arriving last week.
Their latest victory consolidated their passage to the next Tournament of Champions.
She scored 141 points and 13 errors, relying on pure knowledge to win big.
Adriana opted for a risk-averse strategy, which is especially rare in the modern era.
She’s a traditional player who competes from top to bottom (what a relief!) and didn’t go on the daily double hunt a la James Holzhauer.
Instead, she found only eight of the 18 clues hidden in her sequence, refusing to bounce around the board.
This allows the other contestants to find the Daily Doubles (like Carol on Monday) and fall on their swords by losing them with big bets.
“And she touches the columns from top to bottom!” one fan posted on Instagram.
“So much for the argument that finding DDs and luck takes all the fun out of it!” wrote another, liking the traditional style.
During her Q&A stories, she sheds light on how her life led to Jeopardy!.
She honed her skills on a 90s CD ROM version of Jeopardy! Starting at age seven, she only stopped playing after the puck broke in half.
She also shared that she has good handwriting, which is evidenced on her podium (and is always helpful for Final Jeopardy).
“Adriana is so cool I bet she doesn’t even care,” praised another fan previously.
“Adriana is killing it and I love her retro vibe, like she stepped off the set of the Mary Tyler Moore Show,” wrote another.
Danger! Host timeline
Danger! has had a tumultuous history regarding hosts following the death of the iconic Alex Trebek in 2020. Here are every host since the game show’s inception in 1964.
Art Fleming – from 1964 to 1975, he was the original host of the daytime version of Jeopardy! on NBC.
Alex Trebek – From 1984 to 2020, the late, great Alex hosted the modern iteration of Jeopardy! for 36 years until his death from pancreatic cancer.
Guest Hosts – 2020 to 2021, Jeopardy! tested a series of guest hosts for one- or two-week stints, including Anderson Cooper, LaVar Burton and Aaron Rodgers.
Mike Richards – 2021, he was named host for a week before resigning amid controversy. He was the show’s executive producer at the time.
Mayim Bialik – 2021 to 2023, when Mike was announced as the show’s new host, Mayim was chosen to host tournaments and primetime specials.
Mayim and Ken Jennings – 2022 to 2023, 74-time champion Ken (the winningest contestant of all time) joined Mayim as guest host and they shared hosting duties.
Ken Jennings – 2023 to present. Last December, Mayim announced on Instagram that she would “no longer” host Jeopardy! After a long hiatus, having defended the writers’ strike, Ken was named sole host.
Ken now runs all editions of Jeopardy! including Celebrity Jeopardy!, the late night show and other primetime specials such as Masters.
‘FUN TEST ON THE INTERNET’
Adriana is a clinical assistant professor and archivist of University History at Purdue University Archives and Special Collections.
She lives with her husband and said in a recent interview that she auditioned for the show online for fun and was surprised to be contacted a few weeks later.
“I had taken the test online a few times before, but this time I went online one night and took the test for fun.”
“I didn’t expect anything to happen – I just thought of it as another fun Internet test.”
Adriana will face two new opponents to try and win seven tomorrow night – meaning no competitor has ever lost in their seventh game.
Danger! airs at 7pm ET on ABC – check your local listings.
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