Breaking Bad avoided it, and Love/Hate hasn’t managed it (yet), but many TV shows over the years have well and truly ‘jumped the shark’. The phrase refers to the moment in a show’s run when it betrays its own logic, becomes too ridiculous or simply marks a clear & sharp creative decline.
The seemingly odd phrase has very clear origins: it refers to a scene from Happy Days when Fonzie decided to respond to a challenge to jump over a shark using water skis in the 1977 episode Hollywood: Part 3. Although Happy Days continued until 1984, the ‘stunt’ is considered the moment when the show stepped well beyond its popular remit as a nostalgic, character based sitcom. Check out the infamous moment below:
In the years since that Happy Days scene, many fans have often tried to identify the exact moments their favourite programme jumped the shark and were never the same.
Some are easy to identify: Rosanne winning the lottery, the prisoners breaking out of prison in Prison Break (the show lasted several more seasons), Dallas revealing that an entire season - including the death of Bobby Ewing - was one character’s dream, The Flintstones introducing a small green alien called The Great Gazoo etc...The list goes on.
Disputed shark jumping
In other cases, critics dispute the exact shark jumping moment. Take The Simpsons - despite its continued ratings success and pop cultural influence, almost everyone agrees it’s long past its glory days. A pair of episodes are often cited as The Simpsons turning points - interestingly, they were broadcast only a week apart, acting as the first two episodes of the show’s ninth season.
The first is season opener The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, which consisted of a series of largely surreal, unrelated jokes, backed up by a ridiculous plot (even by existing Simpsons standards). However, the episode also has its defenders.
Much more controversial is the subsequent episode The Principal and the Pauper, in which Principal Skinner is revealed to be an imposter named Armin Tamzarian. This is the episode many have said truly marks the show’s definitive and abrupt shift in tone and quality. James Greene argues it “seemed to betray the reality of the show itself “. The show itself even later made fun of the episode: the Behind the Laughter episode commenting that it showed the show resorting to “gimmicky and nonsensical plots”. There were some great episodes after these two, but the damage caused was arguably irreparable.
In some cases, fans will maintain a show never ‘jumped the shark’, while the series’ critics will try to pinpoint a moment. Friends is such a divisive cases: while many feel it remained consistent over its whole run, others suggest a plethora of individual developments that indicated a sharp dip in quality - whether that’s Monica and Chandler getting together, Rachel moving in with Joey or Ross turning extra-eccentric following his failed London wedding. Not quite as dramatic as literally jumping over a shark, but these are often determined as indicators that the Friends writers were running out of ideas.
There’s too many other cases to mention, so best to check out the dedicated Jumped the Shark website where users vote on what moments marked particular show’s worst moment. Our ‘favourite’ reason? When the A-Team started ‘working for the government’. There truly was no turning back for Hannibal, B.A. and company.
