#Did Mike Richards film Jeopardy! episodes before stepping down?

Just in case the Jeopardy! news of the day wasn’t messy enough, you can now add the following to it.

According to a report coming in per TMZ, Mike Richards technically filmed a full week of shows as the new host prior to the decision to step down early Friday. For those who don’t know the game show often tapes a week’s worth of episodes in a single day; all of these were filmed on Thursday.

So are these installments going to see the light of day? The simple answer is “yes.” You will see them starting on Monday, September 13 and the reason for that is simple: Fairness. Matt Amodio is probably the forgotten story amidst all of the hosting chaos, as he quickly has become one of the greatest champions in the show’s history. If these episodes were discarded, then the results of these games would be totally lost and re-doing them could produce an entirely different result. (It’s easy to feel for Amodio, who is going to be asked throughout the aftermath of his, whenever that is, about being a contestant during this incredibly-tumultuous period.)

The TMZ report notes that it’s possible the show will air a disclaimer, stating during the broadcast that Richards is no longer the host. The challenge that the producers have now is figuring out what to do in order to keep the show on-schedule; it looks as though they are going back to the guest-hosting model for the time being, though we’re not sure how many more people they actually need to see in the role. We’ve already listed off who some of the main candidates here should be, and we have a hard time imagining that they’re going to spend months on end now trying to figure this out.

Do you think that Jeopardy! is making the right choice airing these episodes with Richards as host?

Be sure to let us know in the attached comments! After you do just that, remember to also stick around — with this being a developing story, we’ll have further news as it comes out. (Photo: Sony.)