Jumping the Shark & Television Without Pity

This column first appeared in the Age on September 14, 2002

Throw your mind back to a TV show far, far away, in which a teenagers of the 70s pretended to be teenagers of the 50s. Their days were happy and carefree, until, legend has it; a young man called the Fonze went on a beach holiday with his friend Ritchie Cunningham and went water skiing, leather jacket and all. Here the legend gets hazy, but apparently a shark loomed and the Fonze jumped the shark, water skis and all. After that, according to the true believers, Happy Days was never the same again. It had JUMPED THE SHARK.

This momentous event is enshrined on the website: www.jumptheshark.com, a website which strives to capture the moments a show goes off the rails. Interestingly, many people believe that David Cassidy - Man Undercover, (1978) jumped the shark the second it got started.

There are different categories that are common reasons for a show to jump. Some are obvious, like the death of a major character, an event that occurs at the end of most seasons of most shows. There is the majorly naf, like the actor leaving but the character carrying on - think of the Dick York /Dick Sargent in Bewitched. Graduation often does it, and Dawson's Creek (Thursdays, Channel 10, 7.30pm) has been canned at the end of series we are currently watching, having been given a fail after its first year at college. Sometimes it is as simple as a character wandering off into the sunset- and I must confess Er hasn't been the same for me since Dr Ross (George Clooney) left.

Assessing whether a show has jumped is a science and a show needs to have an overwhelming number of voters who feel a show has never jumped the shark to hold such an honour. Those who have made it? Not many, but The Simpsons and The Larry Sanders Show are among the few.

For others who take their series to heart there is a second website I would recommend. www.televisonwithoutpity.com provides scathingly detailed and lengthy plot rundowns on each episode of each series as well as pithy one-liners. How to summarise the last episode of Buffy this year? 'Evil lesbian Wicca girl goes Satanic and tries to destroy the world, but she and the world are both saved by the power of blue-collar man-love.' My thoughts exactly.

Want to find out what happened on episode 13 of series 2 of The Sopranos (insert start date of new series if it comes to hand) - there is a graphic recap waiting for you. 'Tony's in Atlantic City, walking on the boardwalk. It's snowing. . . Tony apologizes for shooting Philly in the head. Pussy's still not looking at Tony. "F*** this," Tony says. "They're never coming." He walks to a spot just off from the group and pours a can of gasoline over his head.'

Need to share your feelings about key stars and characters - there are chat forums in which you can let it all hang out. Like so: "I say that David Duchovny is my boyfriend about twenty times a day. Sometimes I like to mix it up, and say 'baby daddy' or 'eternal soulmate' or 'love slave."

But handle this website with care. In the interest of research and providing you with the highest quality column possible I went to the 24 page on this site and without meaning to saw something that happens in the last episode that I really, really didn't want to know. (Must desist writing now and go and weep).

Posted by Sophie at 09:52 AM