It’s been a busy year for 23-year-old Drew Basile, who came in sixth on Survivor 45 before winning $129,601 on Jeopardy!. Basile was a polarizing player on both the CBS competition series and on one of the best game shows of all time, as his ego tended to rub some viewers the wrong way. However, did that ego help him achieve success on two huge TV shows? Did his experience on Survivor translate at all to the Alex Trebek Stage? Basile opened up about the exhausting tape days on Jeopardy!, and in some ways, that sounds like the more challenging undertaking.
Drew Basile stormed into the Jeopardy! world with a bang, unseating 15-day champion Adriana Harmeyer and ultimately winning seven games of his own before falling in his eighth episode, which aired June 28. In comparing Jeopardy!’s tape days to his experience on Survivor, Basile told the Inside Jeopardy! podcast that each contest presents its own unique challenges. He said:
They have different physical problems like eye strain, back pain from standing up straight. Jeopardy!’s got lock on those. Starvation? The games are only 30 minutes-ish. But this is a very different experience, Jeopardy! is, because it’s high pressure in a single moment, and every decision matters in that instant. There’s no take-backs. Survivor, it’s 26 days, you know? And it’s a different kind of endurance game.
It’s true when you think about it that both games require endurance — especially if you’re 6-foot-6 like Drew Basile — and while there’s undoubtedly a mental aspect to Survivor, Jeff Probst isn’t exactly hurling rapid-fire questions at you after you’ve been on your feet for eight hours straight. On the other hand, Jeopardy! feeds its contestants.
Drew Basile went into further detail about just how “fatiguing” the quiz show was in an interview with EW following his elimination. On a typical tape day, Jeopardy! films five episodes, and it sounds like Drew Basile’s eighth game must have come at the end of a long day, as he said:
By the end of the taping day I was exhausted. I had had a terrible Single Jeopardy round, making all kinds of mistakes… Your mind's out of it. And then I had a come to Jesus moment in Double Jeopardy, I had really rallied. I felt I was performing better, and I finally had secured a relatively stable position going into Final Jeopardy. And the amazing thing about Final Jeopardy was I knew the answer. I knew it was Helen Keller, and I was so exhausted I couldn't remember the name. I knew I got it wrong. I was just so tired, for the life of me I couldn't remember Helen Keller's name.
I think we can all relate to having moments where our brains just shut off, and I can only imagine how frustrated Drew Basile must have felt to make it so far and then not be able to recall that well-known name. Overall, though, he said he had a “blast” playing Jeopardy!, and that is definitely something he can — at least in part — thank Survivor for. The contestant told EW:
The main thing that Survivor might have prepared me for is a kind of comfortability in front of the camera. I did have some experience being on TV in a high stakes thing and being okay with the idea that this would reflect back on me in the public sphere. And then secondarily, it makes interacting with the fans a little bit easier, because whenever you go on TV, there's like a sense of, ‘Oh my gosh, people are going to judge me. They're going to pick up on my mistakes. I won't be able to defend myself.’ That's very disconcerting for a lot of people. I had already kind of gone through that, so with Jeopardy, it didn't phase me.
It is cool that Drew Basile already had that on-camera experience — and had felt the wrath of online trolls — that allowed him to enjoy his time on Jeopardy!. He may be finished for now, but with seven wins under his belt, we’ll be seeing him again in the Tournament of Champions. After his showings on both this and Survivor, I don’t think it’s out of the question that he could someday end up becoming one of Jeopardy!’s biggest winners..
Check your local listings to keep up with the current season of Jeopardy! and see what premieres are coming soon with our 2024 TV schedule.
