I wonder how many takes that took. I read an interview with him in which he called his wife after taping the first five shows. She asked him how he did and he said "terrible, I'm not Alex Trebek", his wife told him that all he had to be was as good as Alex when Alex taped his first week of shows.
I really hope he gets the permanent gig.
This is a good point. I've seen comments that Jennings talked too fast or moved the game along too quickly last night. But if you watch Trebek's early episodes (like last year when they re-ran some of them after running out of new ones), you'll see he was a very fast talker early on as well. Extremely fast.
The thing I thought Jennings could do would be to remember to give the full name when the contestant responds with just the last name, as the rules allow—for example, last night there was a clue about the author of
Silent Spring, the contestant correctly said "Who is Carson?," and Jennings said that was right and moved on. Trebek would have said something like, "Correct, Rachel Carson." It's not a "big deal," but on the other hand, as a viewer when you don't know who the person is or you aren't sure, hearing the full name sometimes jogs your memory. (To be sure, Jennings sometimes did this. It's also fair to recognize that when he was a contestant, he gave only the last name, so it may be natural for him not to think to clarify now. As a contestant, giving just the last name is wise because you don't want to risk giving too much and making your answer wrong.)
But then, my wife didn't like it when Trebek did that because she felt it was arrogant or know-it-all. (She also didn't know Rachel Carson last night.)
Edited to add: BTW, I wonder how long Johnny Gilbert will continue as announcer. He's 96 years old. For the past year he's been remotely recording his part, though, so I guess he could stay on indefinitely.