Five months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek has returned to work on the game show.
Trebek is currently taping episodes for the show’s 36th season, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. The new season premieres Sept. 9 in syndication and has been in production for more than a month.
A healthy-looking Trebek says in a video message that he has “gone through a lot of chemotherapy” and he’s glad it’s over: “I’m on the mend, and that’s all I can hope for right now.”
“We’ve got some exciting things coming up, and I can’t wait to share them with all of you,” Trebek concludes. “Let me tell you, it’s going to be a good year.” (Watch the full video below.)
In March, Trebek shared that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which means the disease had spread to other parts of the body. Stage 4 cancers typically can’t be cured but can be treated. Pancreatic cancer at that stage has a five-year survival rate of just 9 percent.
“I’m going to fight this, and I’m going to keep working,” he said at the time. “And with the love and support of my family and friends and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease.”
He also joked that he had to beat the disease in order to fulfill the remaining three years of his contract to host Jeopardy.
Trebek, 79, continued to work on the show’s 35th season as he underwent chemotherapy. In late May, he said treatment was going well and that “tumors have already shrunk by more than 50 percent.”
CNN first reported Trebek’s return to the show.
