Here’s the Intense Process Behind Every High-Stakes Final Jeopardy Question

We have a separate meeting to go over Final Jeopardy questions. Every few weeks, everyone will bring in their ‘finals’ and we’ll read and critique them. The first thing is to make sure at least one of the other writers can answer it. If that doesn’t happen, then it’s too hard. Like our regular clues, we talk about how it could be worded better or whether we’ve done that fact before. Those go to our executive producer in a separate process before it goes into a game, to make sure he’s okay with them. When we roundtable, that’s when we choose the Daily Doubles and put the Finals on the game. For a Double Double, there’s always an ideal clue on the board we’d like to see. The idea of a Double Double, as with the final question, is something that requires a two-step process. Not just like, ‘Do I know that piece of information or not?’ But rather, ‘Do I maybe know a piece of information that will connect me to the response for that clue?’ If you looked at it as a discrete piece of information, you might never know it, but there’s a hint in there that connects it to another better-known fact.