On the day of its final episode, we ponder: Just when did "Buffy
the Vampire Slayer"
jump the shark?
A. When bad-boy lover vampire Angel left for his own series.
B. When sidekick Willow discovered she was a lesbian.
C. When Buffy got a kid sister.
D. When the show moved to UPN.
Maybe each of those was a nail in the coffin, along with the
musical episode and Buffy having sex with former vampire nemesis
Spike.
—Walt Belcher, "Fangs for the memories," Tampa Tribune, May
20, 2003
The phrase "
jump the shark" has
enjoyed such a vogue in recent months, I'm surprised it didn't turn
up on the list of overused words and expressions put out by Lake
Superior State University this month.
Yet, your friendly neighborhood TV critic feels compelled to
point out that one of the reasons the term is used so much is it's
just so useful. Coined by Jon Hein at the University of Michigan
back in the '80s, it refers to the moment when something —
particularly a TV series — peaks and begins to go downhill into
self-parody and decay. It originally referred to the "Happy Days"
episode in which Fonzie literally tried to jump a shark in a
daredevil water-skiing stunt.
Me, I think "Happy Days" jumped the shark a lot earlier
than that — like when Richie's older brother, Chuck, conveniently
disappeared after the first season — but "lose the brother" would
be even more difficult to explain than "jump the shark."
Anyway, it's obvious to see why the phrase is such a natural for
critics. And the concept of if or when a certain series jumped the
shark is such a natural source of debate, it has produced a cottage
industry for Hein in the form of a trademarked Web site and now a
companion book, "Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad."
(My favorite notation on the site is the Chicago viewer who
suggested "Bozo's Circus" jumped the shark when Sandy the Tramp
left to produce "The Banana Splits.")
So, it being a new year and all, now seems a good time to review
the current prime-time programs and which have jumped the
shark and when. The official jumptheshark.com
Web site helps out with handy categories, such as "I Do" (see
weddings, as on "I Dream of Jeannie"), "Exit ... Stage Left"
(departures, like Suzanne Somers leaving "Three's Company"), "Same
Character, Different Actor" (Dick Sargent replacing Dick York on
"Bewitched") and "A Very Special..." as in "A very special
'Blossom'."
—Ted Cox, "Jumping the shark," Chicago Daily Herald,
January 23, 2003
There is a flip side to this, of course,
at least in television, namely a moment when you realize that the
series is going downhill, the standard has been lost and convention
has taken over. It's called to "jump the shark".
—Jeff Abramowitz, "It's all down hill," Jerusalem Post, May
29, 1998