The iconic game show “Jeopardy” is preparing to air its final new episode on Friday that was filmed before production was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concerns have been raised among fans that once the hiatus is over, the show’s 79 year-old host Alex Trebek won’t be able to return as he continues to battle stage IV pancreatic cancer. That’s why it came as a huge relief when a representative for “Jeopardy” told TVLine that “Alex is looking forward to resuming production as soon as we are able to do so. He’s told us he wants to be one of the first shows back in production.”

Fans feared the worst when Trebek revealed his cancer diagnosis in 2019, but his cancer treatment has been working for him so far, and he celebrated surviving one year since his diagnosis back in March.

“Hi, everyone. If you’ve got a minute I’d like to bring you up to date on my health situation. The one-year survival rate for stage 4 pancreatic cancer patients is 18 percent. I’m very happy to report I have just reached that marker,” Trebek said in a celebratory video posted to the official “Jeopardy” Twitter page.

“Now, I’d be lying if I said the journey had been an easy one,” he added. “There were some good days but a lot of not-so-good days. I joked with friends that the cancer won’t kill me, the chemo treatments will. There were moments of great pain, days when certain bodily functions no longer function and sudden, massive attacks of great depression that made me wonder if it really was worth fighting on.”

A one-year update from Alex: pic.twitter.com/W9101suZeZ

— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) March 4, 2020

Fox News reported that Trebek also said earlier this year that he has no plans to retire.

“When you’ve been hosting, there are some of you who have been doing your jobs for many years,” he explained. “Some of you two or three decades. When you’ve been in the same job for that long period of time, it moves you to think at some point about retiring. Thinking about retiring and retiring are two different things.”