Jumping the Shark

"It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it "Jumping the Shark." From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same."

- http://www.jumptheshark.com

I can define it as points where a show employs gimmicks, usually in the form of new actors or some horrendous plot twist, to draw your attention back to it when it starts suffering in the ratings.

The term originated from an episode of "Happy Days", where Fonzie literally jumps over a shark on waterskis. (No, the shark wasn't wearing waterskis; Fonzie was. And a leather jacket, of course.)

I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but here are a few examples that I've noticed:

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer was great, until they graduated from high school, blew up the school, then went to college. The introduction to "The Initiative", Angel leaving and going to L.A., and Willow becoming a lesbian just sent this show into an irrecoverable tailspin in my opinion. Oh, and the addition of Dawn, too. Did I mention that having Buffy die at the end of one season, and then resurrect at the beginning of the next was just plain stupid? Big thumbs up for the high school years, thumbs down for the college years. Except for Spike. James Marsters remained cool any way you cut him.
  
  
• Dallas reached its high point with the “Who shot J.R.?" episodes. Those episodes collectively launched Dallas into stardom and shot it in the foot all in the same breath. Because you can’t get away with status quo after drawing the attention of the entire country like that. No, you have to go bigger and better with each season. Outrageous plots like “Who killed Kristin?” and “Who killed Bobby?” and “How did Bobby come back from the dead?” and “Was the entire season actually only a figment of Pam’s imagination?” Okay, who pulled that plot out of their ass? Perusing the season recaps at TV.com, the only things I even recognize from the last three seasons are “J.R., Bobby and South Fork”. Everything else is utterly alien to me.
  
  
• AfterM*A*S*H might as well have been called "AfterBIRTH". Just pitiful. Really. It jumped the shark the moment it premiered. Many people were still feeling the loss from M*A*S*H ending, and so the producers decided that maybe you couldn't have too much of a good thing, except that AfterM*A*S*H was definitely not a good thing. If the "Goodbye, Farewell & Amen" episode didn't signal the end of M*A*S*H, then AfterM*A*S*H deep-sixed it faster than you could turn the channel on the TV. This was reminiscent of "Galactica 1980".
  
  
• Galactica 1980 has no redeeming qualities about it whatsoever. Again, jumped the shark within minutes. I find it uncanny how Barry VanDyke seems to land in so many "sinking ships". Good thing his dad is around to give him a steady job on "Diagnosis Murder".
  
  
• Different Strokes noticibly jumped the shark when Arnold went through puberty, and they had to get that annoying little white kid on there to draw back the "annoying kid" demographic. It could have belly-upped long before then, but I never really watched it when it was on. I was a rebellious teenager, with a home to avoid. And home was where the TV was. In unrelated news, Gary Coleman is moving to Utah, having fallen in love with our gorgeous little state while making a movie about the violent sport "Church Basketball".
  
  
• 7th Heaven was, for a while at least, enjoyable to me. Maybe for the first few seasons. It's hard to find a show that isn't peppered with profanity, sex, murder and intrigue at every turn. But once again, the shark rears its ugly head, and we are given two new steady characters to replace the two that are moving out. Meet the twins: Not as cute as Mary-Kate and Ashley (were), but characters nonetheless. You couldn't really rename the show 9th heaven, hence it is now "7 kids" rather than just "7 people in the family". Then comes the intrigue. Mary breaks up with (insert some boyfriend's name here) then gets back together with him, then breaks up with him again, then dates a firefighter... Hell, you could say the same thing about Matt. And Lucy. And Simon. Then Simon runs over somebody. And then I can't even count the number of characters that are regulars on the show today. They should either call it "43rd Heaven" or "I bet none of these people make it to Heaven"
  
  
• Without A Trace is really one of my favorite shows, but it seems like it has jumped the shark this season. Why? New blood. Not all over the sidewalk or anything, but in the form of two new characters. A computer genius (who is actually likeable), and a hot Latina agent that has an attitude the size of Godzilla. And now, all of the stereotypical personality clashes. Damn. It was a good show.

Music performers jump the shark all the time. How many "Farewell Tours" can you count, and then said band or artist is back in the studio a few years later doing another album?

Music and TV shows aren't the only thing to "Jump the Shark". McDonalds has jumped the shark so much that they should really have a McShark sandwich on the board by now. How many different gimmicks do they use to get you into their restaurants? Cheap toys in the Happy Meals, playlands that your kids can climb all over while you choke down some of the food, game contests that give you more game pieces when you buy more food, DVD rental machines. Hell, if McDonald's food was good, they wouldn't have to use all that crap to draw you in. But it all tastes the same. Even the new Gourmet Chicken Sandwiches taste conspicuously like the rest of their menu. Most national fast food purveyors are guilty of the same, and have been for a while.

Maybe another definition of "Jumping the Shark" could be "expanding into other markets because your primary product just isn't cutting it". Again, McDonalds is guilty as charged. McSalads, McPizza, McBreakfast...etc. But I will stop kicking the dead horse of McDonalds for a moment to focus on another group: Automobile manufacturers. Does anybody remember when Honda made two different car models, and lots of motorcycles?

Most manufacturers had few enough different models that you could count them on ten fingers at the most. Well, everybody wanted a piece of every freakin' pie, so now, we have roughly ten times the number of car models on the road than we did 25 years ago. Every car manufacturer now has to have a pickup truck, and SUV, a minivan, a midsize car, an economy car, and a sports car. This is in some ways good, as it forces change and progress. If it weren't so, then Dodge Caravan would probably still look like the ugly little breadbox that it started out as in the early 80's. But I would never in my freaking right mind buy a Porsche SUV. Those two words are an oxymoron to me.

Just a simple twenty years ago, who would have thought:

• Cadillac and Lincoln would make a Suburban
• Porsche would make a station wagon
• Toyota and Nissan would make full-size pick-up trucks
• HUMMER would be making smaller models
• Japanese Deluxe: Acura, Lexus and Infiniti
• and the list goes on...

Share with me your experiences of "Jumping the Shark".