Admittedly, the Clue Crew has been a bit of an afterthought in recent years. And whenever a CC member left or didn't have their contract renewed the last couple of years, they weren't replaced. The writing seemed to be on the wall.
It also became commonplace (at least from my viewings) to see Clue Crew-centric categories (or anything featuring video clues with a special guest reader) being used as "time killers" by a player in the lead, or held off until the last category. I can see Davies trying to fix the video clue concept and presentation -- perhaps limit the amount of video clues per category to 1-2, and spread such clues on a more regular basis to multiple categories in a round?
If you want to do a video category on, say, New Orleans, it's likely a lot cheaper to have the clues produced and presented by the New Orleans J! affiliate instead of having the show send a Clue Crew team to the city (or even recording a clue with a CC member and a monitor/prop/etc. at Sony).
Maybe it's me, but I was a little disappointed that the former CC members weren't mentioned by name in the show's article/press release. Given the uniqueness of the job and the fact only six people can lay claim to holding said position, it would have been nice to have mentioned Sofia, Jon, Cheryl and Kelly by name (unless there's some behind-the-curtain issue we don't know about).
JD
