Over the weekend, longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek sadly passed away at 80 years old after a battle with cancer. Even though this is truly a tragic loss, we’ll all be able to spend a little more time with the gameshow icon. Since Jeopardy! shoots episodes with a fairly long lead time, Sony Pictures Television has banked enough new episodes of the famous quiz show to keep Alex Trebek behind the podium until just before the end of the year.

Sony Pictures Television announced that Alex Trebek’s final day recording episodes of Jeopardy! was on October 29, just over a week before he passed away. There will be new episodes of Jeopardy! featuring Alex Trebek through the rest of the year, and his final episode will air on Christmas Day.

Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra offered up a statement on the passing of Alex Trebek:

“Today we lost a legend and a beloved member of the Sony Pictures family. For 37 amazing years, Alex was that comforting voice, that moment of escape and entertainment at the end of a long, hard day for millions of people around the world. He was the heart and soul of ‘Jeopardy!’ and he will be deeply missed by everyone who made him part of their lives.”

The studio has no plans to immediately announce a new host for Jeopardy!, so it’s not clear what the future of the show looks like in the wake of Alex Trebek’s passing. Even if Trebek hadn’t passed away suddenly, Sony Pictures Television wouldn’t have been given much notice when it came to Trebek’s final episode. Speaking at the Television Critics Association winter press tour back in January, Trebek said this about his plans for whenever his final episode would happen:

“I made this decision a long time ago. What I would do, it would be the same as when I shaved my mustache. I would do it on a whim. On that particular day, I will speak to Harry [Friedman, executive producer], and I will speak to Clay [Jacobsen], our director, and tell them, ‘Give me 30 seconds at the end of the program. That’s all I need to say goodbye, because it’s going to be the last show.'”

Unless Trebek recorded something in advance just in case, there’s a chance we won’t get one final goodbye from the Jeopardy! host. Maybe it’s better if he ends the show just the same as he has all these years, so that way he’ll never really be gone from his post. At the very least, he left us with decades of memories of fantastic quiz entertainment, and we’ll get to have him for a little while longer as these final episodes continue to air.

While we wait for the end of Alex Trebek’s tenure as Jeopardy! host, here’s a touching story about a winner who told Alex about how he learned English from watching the host on the show for years.

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