When Shows Jumped The Shark

[Fait Accompli]

The finale of HIMYM season 4 was great ('The Leap'), which made ridiculously high expectations for season 5 which was a let down. I think season 6 was a bit better overall with Barney evolving as a character and Marshall's dad passing, actually becoming a proper human being now, but I HATED Zoey. Just a terribly character. Especially when with about 5/6 episodes left of the series, at the end of an episode Future Ted says "oh by the way, Zoey isn't your mother". Why the fuck should I give a shit about her now?

And I totally disagree, the main reasons to which the show is find out who the mother is, but now we also want to know what happens with the other characters too. Plus Robin in general.

75% of the time, I feel the same way about Lily.

[Ruki]

EDIT: @Ruki: My ranking would be Season 1 > Season 4 > Season 2 > Season 3, but none of them was outright terrible.

I would go 1 > 3 > 4 >2.

Half tempted to rewatch a season or two now...

[Daniel Bryan]

HIMYM's jumping point was probably season 5, because it was the first one that had no impact on the larger story of how Ted met the mother. People who complain that he hasn't met the mother yet baffle me - I honestly can't see the logic behind it, other than complaining for the sake of complaining. If that's the only reason you're watching, here's how it ends: He meets the mother. That's been obvious from the start; the real story is about how he gets there.

Still, that sense of an overarching story and seeing things fall into place is the best thing about the show, and every season in some way pushes Ted closer towards the ending - except Season 5, when he fell by the wayside, events seemed to have no significant effect on his life story, and it turned into essentially just another generic sitcom that happens to have a voiceover.

[Matt]

HIMYM - Robin Sparkles. I'm glad I stopped watching then because he still hasn't met the mother. Great premise for a show. I'll tell you 400 stories that have nothing to do with meeting your mother on a show called How I Met Your Mother.

So really it's the show's title you have a problem with?

Don't put the premise of the show in the title if you never intend to resolve said premise. 24 for example would have sucked if an entire season or five was about Jack Bauer taking the day off, sleeping in, shopping for groceries and shooting hoops before taking a relaxing bath and snuggling up with a good book. To me that's what HIMYM has become.

Eh, I just think you're being a bit too picky, the show is about Ted's quest to find "the one", "the one" being the children's mother, they clearly intend to show how they meet eventually, they're just going through the process of showing all the failed relationships that led him to the point.

"How I got to the point in my life where I eventually met your mother" doesn't really have the same ring to it.

[Damian WayLNKe]

The finale of HIMYM season 4 was great ('The Leap'), which made ridiculously high expectations for season 5 which was a let down. I think season 6 was a bit better overall with Barney evolving as a character and Marshall's dad passing, actually becoming a proper human being now, but I HATED Zoey. Just a terribly character. Especially when with about 5/6 episodes left of the series, at the end of an episode Future Ted says "oh by the way, Zoey isn't your mother". Why the fuck should I give a shit about her now?

And I totally disagree, the main reasons to which the show is find out who the mother is, but now we also want to know what happens with the other characters too. Plus Robin in general.

75% of the time, I feel the same way about Lily.

I have a hard time watching reruns with Stella. I hate her.

[naiwf]

"How I got to the point in my life where I eventually met your mother" doesn't really have the same ring to it.

They've done 136 episodes already, and from what I gather they are no closer to the mother than they were in episode 1. I don't care how optimistic the show runners were, they didn't plan to go 7 seasons and 150+ episodes with this story at the outset and as such they've gone from filler episodes to filler seasons and have essentially made the show about everyone but Ted at times. There's nothing wrong with a sitcom not having a grand storyline, but when the premise of the show is that a guy is telling his kids the story of how he met their mother there should be a little bit more movement on that subject before season 7. Your mileage may vary.

[Ron]

"How I got to the point in my life where I eventually met your mother" doesn't really have the same ring to it.

They've done 136 episodes already, and from what I gather they are no closer to the mother than they were in episode 1. I don't care how optimistic the show runners were, they didn't plan to go 7 seasons and 150+ episodes with this story at the outset and as such they've gone from filler episodes to filler seasons and have essentially made the show about everyone but Ted at times. There's nothing wrong with a sitcom not having a grand storyline, but when the premise of the show is that a guy is telling his kids the story of how he met their mother there should be a little bit more movement on that subject before season 7. Your mileage may vary.

Yes. The 'Mother' part has been a long time for little payoff, but I stopped giving a shit about who was going to be the mother because of said reason and I watch because I love Barney, Marshall, and Robin. I still think it's an entertaining sitcom, but I agree that the lack of development on the mother front recently has been put on the backburner.

Edited September 15, 2011 by Ron

[Matt]

"How I got to the point in my life where I eventually met your mother" doesn't really have the same ring to it.

They've done 136 episodes already, and from what I gather they are no closer to the mother than they were in episode 1. I don't care how optimistic the show runners were, they didn't plan to go 7 seasons and 150+ episodes with this story at the outset and as such they've gone from filler episodes to filler seasons and have essentially made the show about everyone but Ted at times. There's nothing wrong with a sitcom not having a grand storyline, but when the premise of the show is that a guy is telling his kids the story of how he met their mother there should be a little bit more movement on that subject before season 7. Your mileage may vary.

Oh I agree on that front, they're dragging it out longer than they'd planned partly because of the success of the show itself and partly because of the popularity of Barney and to a lesser extent Marshall, Lily and Robin, so they've felt the need to make their storylines more prominent. But yeah, the show is about Ted's life (and that of his friends to an ever-growing degree) and how he got to be with his perfect woman rather than just one storyline of "here's the series of events immediately before this character met his perfect woman".

If the show wasn't still entertaining then I'd have stopped watching ages ago because yeah we're not much closer to knowing who the mother is (which I do find a little annoying), but like people have said, the show has become a lot more than simply finding out who the mother is in the same way Lost became more than "are they going to get rescued" or Seinfeld became more than about Jerry's life.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Lily is a great example of why basing characters on people you know in person is not a good idea. If you weren't aware, Lily is based on the wife of one of the show's creators, with they themselves being Ted and Marshall's bases, and I think that's a big part of why Lily is the only character of the bunch who never gets called on any of the shit she does. And she does a lot. I've even stopped finding Alyson Hannigan particularly attractive; I caught an episode of Buffy yesterday and had two immediate thoughts - 'wow, Willow's cuter than I remember' and 'fuck, who is that, who plays Willow?' That was weird.

[Daniel Bryan]

They've done 136 episodes already, and from what I gather they are no closer to the mother than they were in episode 1.

Not true. The first four seasons, at the least, form a chain of events that's clearly moving him along the path to meeting the mother, and every season is an important link in the chain. That's why it was so disappointing when Season 5 came and went without him making any progress. Thankfully, Season 6 got it back on track, and Season 7 looks to make some serious progress already.

Edited September 15, 2011 by The Dragon

[New Damage]

Yeah, in that regard HIMYM and Dexter are similar. The conclusion of season 4 was a massive turning point for both main characters; Ted and his break up with the woman he was about to marry in Stella and making 'the leap' to the ext stage of his life, and with Dexter it was the death of Rita.

For both series, season 5 was generally a transitional series where they're both re-finding themselves and establishing new/other characters (and thus from an entertainment perspective didn't live up to the previous series).

As mentioned, season 6 of HIMYM helped get back on track, and hopefully the following season of Dexter will do the same.

[Colly]

Mighty Boosh series 3. Probably the Crimp episode. Watching back, series 1 is actually really really good. Series 2 has some quality moments but series 3 just poops itself. I'll save the first couple of episodes though because Stationary Village was fantastic.

Bollocks. The Crimp is fairly weak by comparison but the very next episode was Crack Fox which is disturbing brilliance. Not the best episode ever but certainly not a shark jump.

Red Dwarf died the moment one of the writers left after series 6. 7, 8 and the horrendous Dave episodes should never have aired as far as I'm concerned.

[Guest mr. potato head]

Saying HIMYM is a show about how Ted Mosby met his children's mother is a bit like saying Mad Men is a show about an advertising agency or saying Frasier is about a son moving back in with his father. At some point the premise stops mattering and people only watch for the plots and characters. Not everything has to be Lost.

[Walker]

For The Big Bang Theory, I point to the introduction of female Sheldon. I've only watched out of necessity since.

[GhostMachine]

The funny thing is "Jumped The Shark" comes from the episode of Happy Days where Fonzie actually does water-ski jump over a shark. But the show really didn't start to go downhill until the next season. (And was only really shitty the last season or two)

I think Heroes missed a lot of opportunities. The various ways Sylar had been dealt with, only to turn back into a bad guy, were dumb. Ali Larter keeping popping up as yet another twin with a different power was dumb. But Mohinder gaining super powers was beyond idiotic. What killed the show for me was it becoming more about Claire than the other characters and Sylar not being stopped once and for all. I never liked Maya to begin with (The actress, yes. Character, no) and felt a lot of potential was pissed away by having Peter and Nathan's father kill Adam off. I didn't watch much of the last season of the show and don't really feel I missed anything. The first two seasons were great, though.

[zero]

Glee jumped when it returned from its midseason break in season 1. It went from a charming little high school show about underfunded arts programs and other current issues and then became preachy self-indulging pop culture nonsense with no plot, structure or characters.

Heroes jumped when they revealed in the season 1 finale that Sylar wasn't dead.

House jumped with the episode after House left the mental institution. That was arguably the best episode the show ever did and it should've been the series finale.

The Simpsons jumped after Behind the Laughter, which also should've served as the series finale.

Alias jumped when they raided and dismantled SD6 completely out of nowhere in season 2.

Rescue Me jumped the shark in Season 4.

And fuck all y'all... Buffy NEVER jumped! Season 6 is overbashed, I wouldn't even say it's the worst season of the show.

[Benjamin]

The funny thing is "Jumped The Shark" comes from the episode of Happy Days where Fonzie actually does water-ski jump over a shark. But the show really didn't start to go downhill until the next season. (And was only really shitty the last season or two)

I think Heroes missed a lot of opportunities. The various ways Sylar had been dealt with, only to turn back into a bad guy, were dumb. Ali Larter keeping popping up as yet another twin with a different power was dumb. But Mohinder gaining super powers was beyond idiotic. What killed the show for me was it becoming more about Claire than the other characters and Sylar not being stopped once and for all. I never liked Maya to begin with (The actress, yes. Character, no) and felt a lot of potential was pissed away by having Peter and Nathan's father kill Adam off. I didn't watch much of the last season of the show and don't really feel I missed anything. The first two seasons were great, though.

Look at GhostMachine showing his age, because he was there when they initially showed Fonzie jumping the shark

Also, I can't believe people are talking about how entertaining that Met Your Mother crap is. The only good thing in it is Neil Patrick Harris, and at times he falls flat as fuck, too. That Marshall dude sucks, Allyson Hannigan is really lame, and the Ted guy is so annoying I want to reach through the TV and murder him. It's a poor man's Friends.

[LittleDaniel]

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I've been enjoying series 6 of House (Japan's a little behind, they're playing through it now). It's had some interesting episodes (aside from the excellent mental institution episodes) such as House and Wilson's trip for Wilson's seminar, Chase and the political dictator...including all the fallout from that AND that last episode they showed which follows Wilson around more as the main character which is really interesting and a refreshing change of pace. It's definitely changed from the more straight-up stuff of 1,2,3 and the new team stuff of 4,5 (with the truly amazing bus crash episode) but as of half way through series 6, I really like it still.

It's been ages since I've been able to watch it but I really enjoyed some episodes of Third Watch which used to be shown on one of the cable channels over here. The Bosco character is fantastic and I strongly recommend the episode "A Call For Help" from the 5th episode. The whole episode takes place in one little back street after one of the cop cars gets called to an anonymous call about a guy covered in blood and calling for help. It's a fantastic episode for such a show.

Here's part 1 if you have the time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi6cWD2dZus

[LUKIE]

The only show I have ever stopped watching because I couldn't enjoy it anymore, was Glee, when it started out as this little group of kids singing songs and shit, to a group of kids with no budget doing these massive high end budget musical numbers. It stopped being a show about anything other then singing random songs all the time and putting on these massive performances.

Ridiculous.