Pinpoint when shows jumped the shark

[ibdude]

I'll start with a few.

Family Matters: When it became the Steve Urkel Show.

My Wife and Kids: When Junior had the baby and became dumber and dumber as the show went on.

New York Undercover: When they killed Torres off.

My Name is Earl: It jumped the shark to a certain extent for me when Earl went to jail, and also the creative writing episode.

[Deleted]

The Office (US Version): When Pam got pregnant for the first time. Completely killed any interest in the Jim/Pam relationship which was integral to the show. Although most people figure the show jumped when Michael left, in reality it had been declining in quality long before then.

The Simpsons: Principal and the Pauper

[ZERO]

Power Rangers - replacing the powers of the Zeo Crystal (which was supposed to keep growing in power) with CARS. Also, Justin.

[CMWaters]

Jul 29, 2013 4:01:40 GMT -5 ZERO said:

Power Rangers - replacing the powers of the Zeo Crystal (which was supposed to keep growing in power) with CARS. Also, Justin.

Debatable on that, as it also led to what some consider the best season of the series, "In Space". ...best season even considering the Ninja Turtles crossover ep.

[G✇JI☈A]

Spin City - Heather Locklear is shoehorned into the cast.

Red Dwarf - Rimmer leaves. Replaced by annoying character.

Fringe - The alternate universes work together, along with people forgetting who Peter is... Too much shit going on.

Misfits - Replacing every member of the main cast.

[Big Daddy Bad Booking]

House: When the interns S4 came in.
Roseanne: The very beginning of S9.
WWE RAW: When the Attitude Era ended (I kid I kid).
Fresh Price of Bel Air: When the baby came like S4 or S5, forget which. But babies being born are #1 show-killers.

[Arrow]

Jul 29, 2013 5:28:56 GMT -5 Big Daddy Bad Booking said:

Fresh Price of Bel Air: When the baby came like S4 or S5, forget which. But babies being born are #1 show-killers.

The baby was born in Season 3, I think. But he grew up in like S5, which was when I personally think the show went into its decline. Not because of the baby, really, but the whole Will-Lisa thing that dominated the season's focus.

[Deleted]

WWE Raw: The second they hung those pictures of Triple H and Stephanie. The quality went down, and never recovered.

WCW Nitro: The fingerpoke of doom

TNA Impact: Hulk Hogans debut

[Bishblast]

There used to be a great Jump The Shark database on the internet, but in the last few years or so it has pretty much turned into a TVGuide website, and it is totally lame. The old site was really cool.

[häšhtå.gdālėÿ]

Malcolm in the Middle: Reese joins military, parachutes into Afghanistan, goes AWOL, gets married pretending to be a woman, runs away again, talks to a giant talking Waffle Cereal, Lois flies to Afghanistan, finds him, and takes him home.

Memory is pretty foggy of the quality of episodes after that, but my interest in the show was all but killed.

[Deleted]

Jul 29, 2013 8:01:38 GMT -5 Bishblast said:

There used to be a great Jump The Shark database on the internet, but in the last few years or so it has pretty much turned into a TVGuide website, and it is totally lame. The old site was really cool.

Yeah, the terminology for "Jump the Shark" came from that website, but ultimately, the creator just didn't have enough time and energy to maintain the site, so it was sold to TVGuide and became a generic blog.

Bone the Fish is a spiritual replacement to that website.

Anyway, here's my suggestion:

Seinfeld: The Invitations (The general rule of the show was that the main characters were not meant to be caring, but the fact that George shrugged off the death of his fiancee was extremely callous.)

Jul 29, 2013 9:14:59 GMT -5 häšhtå.gdālėÿ said:

Malcolm in the Middle: Reese joins military, parachutes into Afghanistan, goes AWOL, gets married pretending to be a woman, runs away again, talks to a giant talking Waffle Cereal, Lois flies to Afghanistan, finds him, and takes him home.

Memory is pretty foggy of the quality of episodes after that, but my interest in the show was all but killed.

No... that's exactly how it happened, except that Reese ends up in Saudi Arabia.

[Savage Gambino]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy suddenly has a sister Then they jumped that shark with another shark when they decided she was a magic key to another dimension that was just sort of weaved into reality. Honestly, much as I like Season Five, even by Buffy standards it was pretty ridiculous.

Degrassi: I dunno, somewhere between the original cast graduating and them deciding that someone had to become a big national star every f***ing season. Oh, and f***ing Mia.

[Hit Girl]

Raw - The name change.
Nitro - The NWO red/black
Impact - The first episode of Impact

[Welfare Willis]

Married with Children: Season 11 or the move to Saturdays. I don't care what a network says if they move a show to Friday or Saturday they're trying to kill the show off.
ATHF: I'd say around Dickesode or the movie.
Reno 911: The movie or when Comedy Central made them fire three of the cast members and replace them.
Futurama: I'd say the DTV movies.

[Deleted]

Jul 29, 2013 2:39:18 GMT -5 @burngun said:

The Simpsons: Principal and the Pauper

Oh wow, I was thinking of that episode too - the moment they did something.....just completely unnecessary (and then went to ignoring it by episode's end).

Season 9 definitely had more stinkers than past seasons, and Season 10 was no better (the steep decline definitely began between those 2) so P&tP is definitely set in a very appropriate place.

That said, Season 9's Joy of Sect and Simpson Tide (after P&tP) are 2 of my ABSOLUTE favorite Simpsons episodes ever. Mayored to the Mob and Sunday Cruddy Sunday in Season 10 were, IMO, the last great episodes. Episodes remained ok but got worse and staler as time went on. Even the always reliable Treehouse of Terror eps got blander. I just stopped watching late in S10 or S11.

[GreyScaleLJH]

Quantum Leap: Sam Beckett leaping into Lee Harvey Oswald. Its funny, that is one of my favorite episodes of the entire series, but it started the trend of Sam getting more mixed up with celebrity's lives (Marilyn Monroe's limo driver, Elvis, Dr. Ruth) and as well as bizarre storylines (Leaping into the Civil War, a vampire, evil leapers, the last episode). Really if anything, Season 5 was a leaping the shark year, they really wanted to boost ratings.

Family Matters: When Urkel cloned himself. Hello, Sci-Fi Family Matters. That and Urkel's shtick was already tiresome.

The Simpsons: Principal and the Pauper. Ick.

Lost: Time traveling. Love the concept of it, but when that happened the show was starting to get a little bit out there, more so than usual. Still miss that show.

WCW Monday Nitro: nWo Wolfpac. The black and white nWo already ran its course by this time, this just made it silly, even though they sold a lot of shirts. Fingerpoke of Doom is up there also.

WWE Raw: Guest host era. Terrible.

[mizerable]

Frasier: When Niles got Daphne

Everybody Loves Raymond: When Robert married Amy

Seinfeld: When Larry David left, and Jerry's character became even more smug

Entourage: Season 4

The Sopranos: Adriana's death/Junior tries to kill Tony/killing Christopher mid season-it's hard to decide

[TOO SWEET]

Happy Days: Season 5, Episode 1, Part 3.

[SHAKEMASTER TV9 is Don Knotts]

The Office: Season 6, The Meeting. This episode Jim gets promoted, Michael stays and then there's two managers. Putting Jim as an authority figure was the wrong choice. Season 6 in general was the start of a down period. Funny episodes here and there, most episodes had some funny moments but there's such a drop in quality that it never recovered.

[Deleted]

Pretty much anytime a main cast member leaves the show. Scrubs Season 9, That '70s Show Season 8 etc.