sharkjumping

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goldenboy

Scooby
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Feb 17, 2005
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OK, I'm lifting subjects from whedonesque, so sue me!

http://whedonesque.com/?comments=6454#more

This one was interesting. I think Scooby Doo jumped the shark (before the term existed) when they introduced Scrappy Doo. The Brady Bunch when they introduced Cousin Oliver. Seems like a series "jumps" because it's getting old, wanting to maintain a young demographic. So they pull a stunt. They drop in some new young thing to give a series new life"”usually a desperate sign. The Syney Morning Herald says Buffy jumped when Willow turned gay.

Buffy seemed to make a textbook sharkjump with Dawn's addition. If they did sharkjump, it actually worked, injected life into the show....

I think you could possibly make a case that any "real" sharkjumping happened somewhere in seasons 6, 7....

Do you think Buffy jumped the shark? Can a series perform a sharkjumping maneuver and not actually tank creatively?




Whoa...Wikipedia's got a ton of info on the subject....

"The phrase refers to a scene in a three-part episode of the American television series Happy Days broadcast in September 1977. In the "Hollywood" episode, Fonzie, wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket, jumps over a tank containing a shark while on water skis.

Many have noted the shark episode as the moment when they realized the show was no longer worth watching, when it became impossible to maintain a certain suspension of disbelief. Even before "jumping the shark" was employed as a popular culture term, the episode in question was many times cited as an example of what happens to otherwise high quality programs when they stay on the air too long. Producer Garry Marshall later admitted that he knew the show had lost something as the crew prepared to shoot the scene, but he defiantly pointed out in the reunion special that aired in February 3, 2005, that Happy Days went on to produce approximately 100 more episodes after the shark jump episode. During the same special, in response to an audience member question, Garry Marshall introduced the notorious clip, and noted how the show had inspired the term."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark




What was that Simpsons episode where they dropped in that hipster dog character into "Itchy and Scratchy"....
 
I'm not sure if Buffy/Angel applies, because they could do something campy like the guy in the rubber shark's head in Tabula Rasa, yet the rest of the episode had some great stuff.

Even when the whole episode was off like the juvenile nonsense of Him, or turning the hero's into slapstick goofs in Girl in Question, they would come back in following weeks with episodes that would excell.

Jumping the Shark is supposed to be a single incident that indicates the beginning of a general "losing it" feel in the whole of the following series.
 
goldenboy said:
What was that Simpsons episode where they dropped in that hipster dog character into "Itchy and Scratchy"....
Click to expand...

"The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" was the name of the ep.

I personally feel that Buffy never jumped the shark. I can see potential shark jumping incidents (ironically one of them being the potentials) but personally, I don't feel it did. I disagree with Syney Morning Herald because Joss always said he wanted Willow or Xander to turn gay, so I don't feel it was a desperate plea to get ratings. If it was Willow and Tara would have probably been a lot more naked and a lot more gay.

http://www.jumpedtheshark.com/ is a fun site to read.
 
I think that introducing the Potentials could have been an EXTREME jumping the shark measure, if it was allowed to go on longer than it did. If they had showed up earlier in the season, or if they had tried to continue a show about Buffy, with all of these slayers all over the world, I probably would have looked at it and gone "Yep, they've jumped the shark".

I think that the idea that Buffy jumped the shark as early as Season Four is just silly. Ok, yes, if you just look at Willow's self-discovery as "Oops, we need to be PC and hey, what's hotter than lesbians?" sure, that's a "jumping the shark" maneuver. But if you look at it in the context of the Season and even the rest of the show, it's less abot that and more about developing two characters in an interesting (and very sweet) way. Not to mention that IMO, the best was yet to come in Season 4.
 
Buffy superficially seemed to have sharkjumping potential on many occasions, as you guys have mentioned. But the ideas almost always seemed to be an integral part of the plot. That's the benefit of having an arc heavy show I guess...can justify, develop wild ideas over time.

I think sometimes stuntpulling is just being clever, innovative. Buffy had "stunt", novelty eps like OMWF that were simply fantastic. There's a fine line between stupid and clever, as David St Hubbins would say. Sometimes you crash and burn taking a risk. Other times you soar. Buffy mostly soared with its "stunts".
 
The "Willow Turning Gay" storyline would be a candidate for a "jumptheshark" moment...BUT...it was deeply foreshadowed in S3's Doppelgangland. Buffy had many opportunities to jump, and even if it technically did, it always jumped back. The intro of Dawn as a jump moment was reversed by The Body and The Gift, and we can say the same about any other bad moments that could have lead to jumping. For every booboo there was a follow-up gem. BTVS was one of the few shows that avoided the dreaded jump, IMO
 
I think part of Buffy's immunity to the sharkjump is its omni-genre factor. It was everything: soap, comedy, drama, action, horror, etc. There was always room for new ideas, tones, experiments. Very flexible format.
 
nerd4hire
nerd4hire
[No message]
I love that site www.jumptheshark.com - I check it out quite often!

Here's their list of when Buffy may have possibly jumped the shark (people vote on them or add their own):

Death (Tara)
Singing (The Musical)
New Kid In Town (Dawn)
Graduation
Riley and the Initiative
Not That There's Anything Wrong With It (Willow)
Day One
They Did It (Spike and Buffy)
Death (Buffy)
Death and Rebirth (Angel)
"Normal Again"
They Did It (Buffy and Angel)
Hair Care (Buffy crops it)
Oz gets written off
I Don't (Xander and Anya)
The fourth season
Spinoff (Angel)
Exit... Stage Left (Giles)
They Did It (Buffy and Riley)
Dracula
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Marti Noxon
1999 Finale
The second season
Angel becomes evil
Joss Whedon runs out of steam
Recycling
Death (Jenny Calendar)
Network Switch (WB to UPN)
Nobody left in town to die
2/1/99
Buffy uses VISA at the occult shop
Faith tries to seduce Angel
Jumped Back (Spike returns)
1998 season premiere
The fashion police fail to arrest Willow
Body Switching
Angelus
Oz returns
Finale preempted in Indiana
Death (Faith)
Sarah Michelle Gellar dates Freddie Prinze Jr.
It's on the WB
Soapie
Singing (Giles)
The second slayer
The underground science lab
The Wish
Nudity (Spike)
Willow's "magic"
Anya
 
Its sites like that and (to a greater extend) amiannoying.com that makes you laugh at the people who write it. How does Sarah dating FPJ affect the show, I mean c'mon!
 
I think people need to realise the difference between when a show "jumps the shark" and when a show does an episode that they don't particularly like. These days every single time a so called fan of a series is disappointed by a development of a character or storyline they go online declaring that the series has officially jumped the shark. Just because one episode isn't quite up to your personal standards doesn't mean that things are on a downslide.

Take Once More With Feeling, for example. To many people it is one of the highlights of the series, to others it was the most ludicrous thing that Joss ever did. Regardless of how you may feel however, the very next episode, Tabula Rasa, was yet another excellent 42 minutes of televisual entertainment. Hardly what i would call the continuing deterioration of the show.

To me, and to pretty much anyone i know who watches Buffy, the shark was never jumped. Maybe not every episode of the later seasons was absolutely perfect, i myself will admit that First Date had plot holes the size of the Hellmouth, but at no point did Buffy ever stop being well worth your time and effort to watch.
 
Mr. Pointy
Mr. Pointy
the rep that Jen tried to give ;)
It's hard to pinpoint when exactly Buffy jumped the shark, but to me, the show never got back to the kind of quality it had in S2. S3 was the beginning of treating the non-superpowered Scoobies as "useless." Watch the first two seasons and you'll see that in almost every episode, the entire group took part in the climax. This all changed in "Faith, Hope and Trick." Now I love Faith, but this has got me thinking. It's safe to say that Dawn's arrival signaled the end of the Scoobies' importance to Buffy. She now had a new little sister to protect, and she even sais in "The Gift" that she'll choose Dawn's life over theirs. I think "Wrecked" may be the definitive shark-jumper. Willow's "magic as a drug" storyline contradicted continuity, and Spuffy completely diminished Buffy's status as a positive female role-model.
 
See it could be argued that Buffys sexploits with Spike were positive. It showed that even strong powerful women are still humans at heart and can make mistakes. Oh and strong feminists still want sex 😉
 
the switch to UPN/Marti Noxin becoming an executive Producer. Noxin's a decent writer, but a showrunner she ain't.
 
nerd4hire
nerd4hire
Hard to admit, but the evidence seems to suggest there's truth there.
Fat Elvis 007 said:
It's hard to pinpoint when exactly Buffy jumped the shark, but to me, the show never got back to the kind of quality it had in S2. S3 was the beginning of treating the non-superpowered Scoobies as "useless." Watch the first two seasons and you'll see that in almost every episode, the entire group took part in the climax. This all changed in "Faith, Hope and Trick." Now I love Faith, but this has got me thinking. It's safe to say that Dawn's arrival signaled the end of the Scoobies' importance to Buffy. She now had a new little sister to protect, and she even sais in "The Gift" that she'll choose Dawn's life over theirs. I think "Wrecked" may be the definitive shark-jumper. Willow's "magic as a drug" storyline contradicted continuity, and Spuffy completely diminished Buffy's status as a positive female role-model.
Click to expand...

See, this is exactly what i meant. None of the above is truly what could be described as jumping the shark. They are all just examples of developments in the storyline that one individual didn't particularly like, however none of the examples resulted in the show deteriorating in quality to any great degree, or becoming something other than what was the natural progression that Joss intended. All the above examples are showing is that the show didn't remain stagnant and Joss allowed it to change and grow.

I won't dispute that we all have the right to say when we think the show became less interesting to us personally. For me it was probably the Doublemeat Palace storyline in season six. The thing is though that, whilst i didn't find that arc to be all that thrilling, i understood why it was needed in order to progress the overall story arc of the season. It wasn't my favourite development in the show by any means but i'm also not going to say the show jumped the shark just because of that.

Jumping the shark is the moment where a show becomes a pale parody of it's former self, no longer worthy of the respect it once had. Buffy never did this in my opinion. Not every story arc suited every fan and the occasional dull episode was made but the show always came back with a vengeance.
 
It's interesting. Season 6 was when I started getting a sick feeling in my gut over some of the plot developments. I hated where the writers were going. Yet, I had to keep watching, even if it's just out of morbid fascination or something. Like watching a car wreck. That's harsh, but I just loved the show so much...

I think a characteristic of a sharkjump is total apathy in the viewing audience. You just don't care anymore as a show goes through these absurdities. I was anything but apathetic, had to keep watching. Despite all the weird, depressing developments. The dialogue just remained so strong, funny, interesting. Even if the character dynamics, relationships got all screwed up. On the funnyness, dialogue alone, I say no jump (for me).
 
It's curious though. From a personal POV, I find myself agreeing with FE007, The Watcher, and Watcher Wes, even though they all represent opposing arguements.

I agree with the The Watcher when he says BTVS never really jumped. At the same time there were periods in the UPN years when Buffy did appear to be standing in the boat getting ready to leap, and I agree with Watcher Wes when he suggests maybe Marti Noxon was in there pushing.

Without going into research mode, but simply going by impressions I have from reading, I think the ratings were on a slow steady decline in the final 2 seasons. More outright critical reviews appeared to be popping up, and personally more stuff was beginning grate.

I've even identified it for myself. It wasn't because of the darkness or growth of the characters. I like that kind of stuff. For me the bad times of BTVS occurred during the Marti Noxon showrunner periods.

I personally found the beginnings and ends of the final two seasons wonderful, and beyond reproach. These were periods when Joss influence would have been greatest. The Watcher points out season 6 got good again around the period of OMWF. OMWF is a Joss written episode. He would have been around in that period.

Fat Elvis 007 identifies Wrecked as a "definitive shark-jumping", and although I might not fully agree with him, I get his point. The Noxon penned Wrecked followed the Drew Z Greenburg exercise in silliness Smashed, and wanted to be taken seriously without offering a lot reason why it should be, building on concepts of a previous episode that didn't find canon important, or feel required to make sense. Greenberg is generally recognized as one of the lesser quality ME writers, and appears more and more in those periods where Marti Noxon would be running the show.

For me Season 7 began with brilliance. I've never been so exited about a BTVS season, as I was at that point. After showtime though something happened. Interesting storylines deteriorated. Questions went unanswered. The suspense that marked the first part of the season was gone. Things no longer had to make sense. The storyline veered off into multiple dead-end directions.

Looking back now and considering Noxon run periods of Season 6, and Point Pleasant, I have to say what was happening in post-Showtime Season 7 was classic Noxon. I have to agree with Watcher Wes.

Did BTVS actually jump though? Well no, because Joss would always come back and save it.

From Whedon Interviews I've read, he appeared to be getting ready to delegate even more, which might imply it would have become Noxon's show, which to me suggests the show would have made a full-fledged shark-jumping leap.

So yeah, I can see Wrecked and Noxon show-runner periods as shark-jumping moments, but at the same time I don't think Buffy actually jumped.
 
F
Feigenbaum
Excellent points you've brought up!
"Harrison Ford and Nicole Kidman probably have jumped the shark, along with Prince Charles, Blue Heelers, Will and Grace, JAG, Heath Ledger and David Dale. But Julia Roberts probably hasn't, and Buffy never did jump the shark and never will.

That seems to be the consensus with strong minority dissent - among readers who responded to the Herald's story of April 7 about TV shows, actors and movie franchises which have passed their popularity peak (or jumped the shark, in Hollywood jargon). In the story, David Dale suggested that signs of jumping included Demi Moore having her breasts enlarged for the movie Strip Tease, Gwyneth Paltrow dinning a fat suit in Shallow Hal, Willow turning lesbian in Buffy, and Nicole Kidman being mocked in Be Cool as an actress who makes silly script choices. These were some of the comments"

http://www.smh.com.au/news/People/R...c/2005/04/08/1112815721565.html?oneclick=true
 
That site requires registration, but someone at Whedonesque posted some of the comments from the readers of that article, and those readers did not seem any happier with the choice of "Willow as lesbian" for a shark jumping moment than we were.

Here's a sample comment. There's more at the link -

"Sandra Seaman: I definitely think Nicole Kidman has jumped the shark. She's now campy and impossible to take seriously. But I do object to when you called Willow becoming a lesbian jumping the shark (in Buffy). The show took a serious turn at that point, but that's more attributable to the fact that the characters graduated from high school and had to move on into new lives. I don't think that the subsequent seasons were worse off for that.

Also, Willow becoming a lesbian was hardly gimmicky, and some of the most critically acclaimed moments of the show occurred following that. In fact, Willow's first inklings of feeling for Tara occurred in Hush, the brilliant silent episode. The Body, the episode in which Buffy's mother dies included lesbian Willow and was an incredible show.

Fan favorite Once More With Feeling included the closest primetime has ever come to seeing cunnilingus on television, and remained classy, tasteful, clever and fun. Later seasons' Willow has a fanbase to rival Buffy's, and not because of her sexuality, but because she is a strong, intelligent character, well-written and well-acted.

The show after this point is different (whether it was better or not is a matter of opinion) but I would hardly call Willow's shift towards girls a defining moment in the downfall of Buffy. I'm not quite sure that Buffy ever Did jump the shark. If so, I suspect it was when Spike got his soul back. But again, I'm not certain I could say that Buffy ever did.

Buffy as a show was so hard to define, was so many things at once, that its defining moments could be treated in so many ways. One defining moment was drama, one was comedy, one was horror... Finding a single thing in a series so rich in content and context that represents its future success or lack thereof is nearly impossible. It is overly simplistic to say this moment was the beginning of the end. Buffy wasn't perfect, but it always managed to recover and always brought itself back to the space that its fans needed.

If Buffy ever jumped the shark, she stopped halfway to kick the shark's ass before turning back. Please reconsider your comparison of Willow's sexual questioning to the lamest moment in television history."
Click to expand...

http://whedonesque.com/?comments=6488
 
Considering that my least favorite periods of BUFFY happened during its early years - Seasons 1 to 2; and Season 4, I can't really say that the show jumped the shark during its later years. In my opinion, it got more interesting . . . and better. Season 7 was not the best of the show, but I thought it was certainly one of the better seasons. I found it fascinating, considering how Whedon took the idea of good vs. evil on a whole new level that I suspect that many viewers found disturbing. Because it said a lot about the morality of humanity. And how most people dislike the idea of change - and that includes fictional characters growing up.
 
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