When I was reading this, I thought of 80s versions of Pyramid, and how strict they were at times. There was at least one incident I recall where a contestant got the last box for the $10,000 jackpot a fraction of a second after the buzzer went. IIRC, they went to commercial and came back and denied the contestant the money. Dick explained that \"...it\'s not the money...\", but that they had to follow certain rules. If they allowed that win to stand, then what about someone who\'s a half-second over, or 1 second...where does it end? They had the rules in place to be fair to everybody and enforced it strictly.
I\'m not saying Jeopardy was right or wrong...although I probably would have allowed the answer to stand. If they\'re following the \"hard-ass\" rules (as someone posted up-thread), they\'re calling it that way for everybody.
I guess a lot of it depends on the mood of the judges. On the original Split Second, I recall they were picky at times...whereas on the \'80s remake, Monty was the judge and was more lenient.