Fred Fox, Jr., the writer on Happy Days who wrote the episode where Fonzie jumped over the shark, defends Happy Days against everyone who has used the term "jumped the shark":
Personally, I'd be thrilled to be immortalized by introducing a term into pop culture lexicon. "Jumping the shark" is a term that'll live long past our grandkids.
And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy."
Originally posted by It's FalsePersonally, I'd be thrilled to be immortalized by introducing a term into pop culture lexicon. "Jumping the shark" is a term that'll live long past our grandkids.
NYPD Blue, for example. Bewitched went on for some time after Darren switched. Dallas jumped the Shark, but after we found out Bobby Dreamed it, it settled back down.
Mash is one that kind of jumped the shark by having old antagonists Hawkeye and HotLips kiss and perhaps "do it", then go on for a couple episodes. But they sort of righted the ship on that.
Yeah, it can happen.
We'll be back right after order has been restored here in the Omni Center.
That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy - Swift
Originally posted by odessasteps While some of the BJ/Colonel Potter seasons were pretty good, it really wasn't the same show after Trapper and Henry Blake were gone.
I think it wasn't all that good until after Trapper and Henry Blake (and Frank Burns) were gone. I thought the characters that replaced them were better and more well-rounded, and I liked the ways that the show experimented.
Originally posted by odessasteps While some of the BJ/Colonel Potter seasons were pretty good, it really wasn't the same show after Trapper and Henry Blake were gone.
I think it wasn't all that good until after Trapper and Henry Blake (and Frank Burns) were gone. I thought the characters that replaced them were better and more well-rounded, and I liked the ways that the show experimented.
I feel the same way. The first three years (Blake/Trapper years) were more sitcomey and goofy (in a Hogan's Heroes way) than the dramedy (Potter/BJ) years that followed.
I have been DVRing MASH on TV land and I've almost got through the 1st three years. I normally don't watch those shows, but I did this time just to see how little Trapper was used. You can't blame him for leaving, Trapper was just Hawkeye's sidekick.
Making Hawkeye the Chief Surgeon really gutted Trap's character.
I preferred Winston and BJ too, Winston was a better foil due to having some humanity while Barnes seemed way too much like a mustache twirling villain then an army surgeon. The Dallas dream season is weird. Its weird that the entire season was a dream and a jump the shark moment, but the season itself proved that without Bobby to stand in JR's way, its a fairly frustrating show to watch. I would also make the argument that X-Files righted the ship with season 8 only to slam it into a the Cliffs of Dover with season 9. The only other show, I can think of jumping the shark was West Wing with their 9-11 episode and then unjumping it with the Santanos storyline that mirrored our own election in 2008.
The 9-11 episode was a one-off. Some of the show's best stuff happened directly after that in seasons 3 and 4. Season 5, as a whole, was one big shark-jump.
Originally posted by lotjxI preferred Winston and BJ too, Winston was a better foil due to having some humanity while Barnes seemed way too much like a mustache twirling villain then an army surgeon.
Who the crap are Winston and Barnes?
Did you mean Winchester and Burns? Did you even know anything about MASH? Or is this another "VT is still in the Big East" thing?
Originally posted by Amos CochranThe 9-11 episode was a one-off. Some of the show's best stuff happened directly after that in seasons 3 and 4. Season 5, as a whole, was one big shark-jump.
Yeah, the clear shark-jump moment was Sorkin leaving.
lotjx is right, however, that a lot of the Santos election storyline was worth watching. It was never quite as good as the Sorkin seasons--for one thing, the early seasons had a lot of humor, and the Wells era pretty much never did--but it was close at times.
It's weird, because Wells found his feet with seasons six and seven, and some of the best stuff happens in those last runs (a non-cliche Republican presidential candidate being chief amongst those plusses). But aside from the odd episode like "The Supremes" season five is a goddamn slog.
Still, upon reflection I'd hesitate to call it a shark-jump, because the show definitely got its mojo back - or at least a good helping of it - for those last two years.