After the succession debacle at “Jeopardy!” turned one in every of tv’s most revered recreation reveals right into a punchline on late-night discuss reveals and on the Emmy Awards, Mayim Bialik took over as a brief host this season with a easy aim: not to attract an excessive amount of consideration to herself.

Her job, as she sees it, is to easily ship the clues, and he or she has been favoring subdued colours like navy blue over the electric-pink she wore final season. “I didn’t wish to be distracting — like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s that woman!’” Bialik mentioned in a latest interview. “I feel lots about ‘Jeopardy!’ simply must be very impartial to nice.”

Impartial to nice: It’s a becoming phrase for “Jeopardy!,” a staid tv staple. However the present’s efforts to discover a successor to Alex Trebek, the beloved host who died final yr, have hardly been both. In August it introduced Mike Richards would get the submit and that Bialik would lead prime time specials. Then the Richards appointment imploded over a sequence of offensive comments he had made on a podcast. Now Bialik has stepped in as an interim host, whereas making it clear that she would like the top job permanently.

However Bialik — a preferred sitcom actor who blogged when running a blog was well-liked, vlogged when vlogging was well-liked, and now has her personal podcast — has lengthy drawn consideration, and controversy, with copious public statements of her personal. Almost a decade in the past she wrote in a guide of creating an “knowledgeable choice to not vaccinate our kids,” prompting her to make clear final yr that they might get vaccinated towards the coronavirus. She blogged about donating money to buy bulletproof vests for the Israel Defense Forces. She endorsed a “brain health supplement” earlier this yr for an organization that agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing it of false promoting.

Scrutiny of her many previous statements has now grow to be the most recent chapter within the saga that’s the recreation present’s makes an attempt to discover a host who sticks.

“Proper now we’ve acquired somebody completely freed from controversy, Mayim Bialik,” John Oliver joked on a latest episode of “Final Week Tonight,” occurring to explain her as “an individual I feel is nice as a result of I don’t have Google.”

The present has not addressed the criticism publicly, and Bialik’s episodes have seen a slight ratings bump in comparison with the 5 episodes that Richards had taped earlier than his departure (seemingly helped by the contestant Matt Amodio’s lengthy successful streak, which ended Monday). Bialik — who hopes to grow to be the primary lady to completely get the highest job on “Jeopardy!”— joked in an interview that the general public scrutiny may have been worse.

“I credit score me and my publicist, Heather, that like there actually wasn’t much more,” Bialik laughed. “I’ve been speaking for a very long time.”

Bialik has been within the public eye for many years. She grew to become the younger star of a community sitcom, “Blossom” in 1990. Later, she spent years as a personality on the “The Large Bang Idea.” However her freely-shared opinions have typically attracted criticism.

“The notion of subtlety and nuance is one thing that’s been missing from our tradition for a lot of, a few years now,” she lamented within the interview.

The present just lately introduced that Bialik would proceed as host by means of Nov. 5; after that she’s going to break up internet hosting duties with Ken Jennings, a former champion additionally seen as contender for the highest job, till the top of the yr. A part of the problem for Bialik — and anybody within the working for the job — would be the comparability to Trebek, who began as host in 1984 and cultivated the picture of an impeccably neutral omniscient narrator.

Bialik, who earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience, has a matter-of-fact manner of talking that implies the form of authoritative intelligence Trebek projected as host. Her performing expertise — she is presently starring in a Fox sitcom known as “Name Me Kat” — has accustomed her to the on-set calls for of TV. Bialik known as the “Jeopardy!” job a “mixture of every part I’ve ever labored for.”

However her willingness to share her opinions publicly on every part from parenting to the battle within the Center East represents a putting departure from the studied neutrality of Trebek. In his end-of-life memoir, Trebek wrote that he held his opinions so near his chest that he acquired letters from Republican viewers pondering he was Republican and Democratic viewers pondering he was a Democrat (he was an unbiased).

Googling Bialik’s identify brings up expansive archives of written and recorded ideas on topics together with her positions on shaving, the film “Fifty Shades of Grey,” swearing, online dating, third-wave feminism, women’s sexuality, pop music, and a billboard featuring Ariana Grande in a revealing outfit. An essay she wrote in The New York Instances in 2017, “Being a Feminist in Harvey Weinstein’s World,” during which she lamented the objectification of girls in Hollywood and famous her private selection to decorate modestly, prompted criticism; Bialik later clarified that the one individuals accountable for assaults are “the predators who’re committing these horrendous acts.”

She has shared myriad private particulars, discussing her divorce, her struggles with aging and body image, and her method to raising children. This yr, she began a podcast about psychological well being, talking overtly about coping with anxiousness and an consuming dysfunction.

For a number of years, Bialik principally disappeared from Hollywood. She earned a Ph.D., had two youngsters and anticipated that she may spend the remainder of her profession educating Hebrew and piano, till she started showing in “The Large Bang Idea” in 2010. What was initially imagined to be a two-episode arc on the CBS sitcom changed into 9 years and 4 Emmy nominations.

Bialik by no means ended up in academia, as she as soon as imagined she would, however she typically cites her doctorate in her books on parenting and adolescent improvement and her affiliations with teams or merchandise. (“Neuriva is the mind complement trusted by an actual neuroscientist — me!” she says in an ad for the company, whose claims had previously been described in Psychology Today as “pseudoscience.”)

Earlier than her endorsement of Neuriva was introduced, the corporate behind the product, Reckitt Benckiser, was sued in a class-action case during which plaintiffs claimed that there was no strong proof that the complement improved mind efficiency. The corporate, which denied wrongdoing, agreed to explain the product’s substances as “clinically examined” moderately than “clinically confirmed.”

Bialik mentioned she stays an endorser — she signed onto a time period of dedication — and that she had consulted a panel of medical doctors concerning the complement earlier than signing on. “It’s precisely what it states that it’s: It’s a complement that has parts that completely are wholesome to your mind,” she mentioned. “I make no claims and haven’t made any claims that it cures something.”

In her 2012 guide on attachment parenting, “Past the Sling,” Bialik wrote that she and her husband on the time had determined to not vaccinate their sons; she later rejected the label “anti-vaccine.” In response to latest criticism, Bialik, who home schools her sons, mentioned she wished to “shout from the rooftops” about a video she had recorded final yr which she claimed clarified her place.

Within the video, she says she and her sons could be receiving the coronavirus and flu vaccines. “The reality is I delayed vaccinations for causes that you just don’t essentially get to find out about merely since you observe me on social media,” she mentioned. Now, she mentioned within the video, “my youngsters could not have had each one of many vaccinations that your youngsters have, however my youngsters are vaccinated.” She then went on so as to add that she believes “we give manner too many vaccines.”

In the course of the interview, Bialik mentioned that her superiors at “Jeopardy!” had not requested her to tone down her outspokenness as the present face of the present, however that it was one thing she had been occupied with.

Two matters Bialik has typically weighed in on publicly are her devotion to Judaism and societal strain on girls’s appearances. However when requested her response to the departure of Richards — who had made a joke on his podcast centered on an antisemitic stereotype concerning the measurement of Jewish noses, together with demeaning feedback about girls’s our bodies — she declined to share her opinion.

“I had a response, however I don’t actually really feel prefer it’s for public consumption,” she mentioned. “It additional doubtlessly complicates any dialogue about making an attempt to return to a state of normalcy for ‘Jeopardy!’ And so I’m form of respectfully selecting to not speak about it.”