Jeopardy! contestant breaks the record for lowest score in the show's history
One Jeopardy! contestant just made a little bit of history on the show, though not quite in the way he would have hoped.
On Monday's episode of Jeopardy!, contestant Patrick Pearce ended the game with a score of -$7,400, which broke the record for the lowest score in the history of the show, according to Entertainment Weekly. The previous record was a score of -$6,800 earned by Stephanie Hull in 2015.
"Imagine doing something that you've wanted to do your entire life and then it turning into that and you know you're going to be on national TV, so you're basically trying desperately not to cry," Hull previously told Slate. "That's kind of where I was."
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Pearce wasn't quite as deep in the hole at the end of the show's first round, at that point having a score of -$200. But as the game continued, he lost $2,000 on a Daily Double wager and more on some high-dollar clues, ending up unable to participate in Final Jeopardy! due to his negative score.
This unfortunate new record came during LeVar Burton's first episode as Jeopardy! guest host. Burton has said that his guest hosting debut wasn't necessarily his best work and that his wife described his performance on the episode as "eh." Apparently, there was a lot of that going around.
