Jumping the shark

In the Jargon English of the the United States, one employs the term jumping the shark literally (" to jump over the Shark ") to speak about the moment when televised series drop notably in quality.

Origins

The term comes from the American televised series the happy Days . In the episode Hollywood , the character of Fonzie made of the Water skiing in a water basin where a shark swims inside. It jumps over the animal under the acclamations of the public. When the spectators saw this scene, they realized that the series had lost much of credibility.

Before even as the expression jumping the shark did not exist, this episode was often quoted in example as televised series which become " anything " by last too a long time.

Reasons

Televised series can make its jumping the shark for many reasons. It can with the fact naturally of blowing itself and the apparent symptoms are only signs where the realizers try " to save the meubles" , without success. But often also, it is due to a particular change in the series which breaks what made it interesting or makes its atmosphere too different to keep its televiewers. One can quote these common reasons thus:

the same character is played by another actor;
a character disappears from the series or dies;
the hero and heroin declare their love, or make love;
the hero and heroin have a child;
Of fantastic or the science fiction is introduced into a series which occurs in a world " réaliste" ;
a new character " high in couleurs" is introduced;
the series concentrates on a different character;
a character trait of a character is exaggerated more and more;
a character changes personality completely;
the series tries to make more and more frequently pass from the social messages;
the format of an episode changes, it becomes longer or shorter;
a series in black and white passes colors;
a scenaristic fault continues to be exploited;
the scénarii are stereotyped too much;
the characters do not evolve/move, some are the events which arrive to them;
the tone of a series becomes lighter and humorous.

See too

Jumping the couch

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