LeVar Burton—the award-winning actor from Roots and Star Trek: The Next Generation and executive producer/host of Reading Rainbow—made his highly-anticipated debut as a fill-in host for Jeopardy! on Monday.
The episode was an exciting one for the actor who won an Emmy at just 20 years-old for playing Kunta Kinte in 1977's Roots. Burton expressed he's been a life-long fan of Jeopardy! and always dreamed of hosting the quiz show.
But it was also an unfortunate one for a contestant who broke a show record—for the lowest score in the history of the popular game show.
The score for contestant Patrick Pearce, a product specialist from Fountain View, California, ended the Jeopardy! round with $200.
His fate was sealed during Double Jeopardy when his earnings dipped further into the negative range at $7,400.
Pearce's negative score outranked the previous record set by contestant Stephanie Hull, who posted negative $6,800 since her March 2015 appearance, according to Slate.
Twitter users marked the occasion by ribbing the contestant and also offering some sympathy.
Due to his negative score, Pearce was not eligible to continue on to the Final Jeopardy! round.
Kathleen McHugh of Detroit and Matt Amodio of New Haven, Connecticut were the remaining competitors.
Amodio came out as the winner, which brought his four-day winning streak to $122,400.
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Comedy Central
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