ABC announces Alex Trebek tribute special, Jeopardy! episodes are banked through December 25

Beloved Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek died this morning after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019, and tonight ABC News will be celebrating him and his life with an hour-long special called Alex Trebek, Remembered: A 20/20 Special at 10 p.m. ET. The show will have “rare footage of his early days on television” and will include interviews that Trebek gave with Michael Strahan and T.J. Holmes aboud “what he wanted his final days to be like and what he learned while confronting stage four pancreatic cancer.” This comes from Variety, which says ABC will also air a Strahan interview with Trebek’s wife, Jean Trebek. It sounds like this all might lean closer toward his battle with cancer specifically, rather than career-spanning highlights or classic Jeopardy! moments, but we’ll see.

Trebek continued working throughout his battle with cancer, though he did take a break last summer for treatment, and suggested at one point that “anything is possible.” Because of his commitment to the show, then, Variety says Sony Pictures Entertainment (which owns Jeopardy! these days) was able to bank enough Jeopardy! episodes to get through December 25. It’s unclear if anyone knew that Trebek was filming what would end up being his last episodes when those were made, but Trebek didn’t want to make a big show out of his final Jeopardy! episode anyway. At the beginning of this year, Trebek explained that all he’d want from the producers at the end of his last episode is 30 seconds “to say goodbye.” It’s also unclear what plans Sony Pictures Television has for the future of Jeopardy!, if any, but it’s far too soon to talk about that anyway.