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Homepage > Joss Whedon’s Tv Series > Buffy The Vampire Slayer > Reviews > "Buffy" Jumped the Shark at the End of Season Five ?
Mytelus.com Buffy The Vampire Slayer"Buffy" Jumped the Shark at the End of Season Five ?Blaine Kyllo Friday 7 July 2006, by Webmaster Being among the first to watch good television programs has its drawbacks. Sometimes you see signs of these shows being past their prime just as the masses jump on the bandwagon. I can’t imagine how frustrated early fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer must have been when, at the last minute, the network told Joss Whedon, "Okay, why don’t you do a sixth season of this thing?" Desktops: Free Upgrade this week You see, Whedon and his writing team, knowing that the series was coming to an end at the close of season five, had decided to kill off their heroine with a dramatic flourish. In bringing Buffy back from the dead, Whedon and his writers jumped the shark. That’s not to say there wasn’t the occasional flash of brilliance from the team, but overall, Buffy should have ended at with season five, with the Slayer making the ultimate sacrifice. That was, after all, what the show was all about. Unlock your equity at chip.ca Beg your pardon? You haven’t heard the term "jump the shark"? Sorry. Jumping the shark refers to the moment, the scene or episode, when an otherwise good television show has a creative lapse so significant, it can never recover; when the plot shifts from the peak, and starts sliding down the other side of the mountain. The phrase was coined in honour of the Happy Days episode in which Fonzie, in a publicity stunt to help save Arnold’s Diner, dons a life jacket over his leather, straps on a pair of water skis, and jumps over a shark in a big tank erected in the parking lot of the hangout. Jon Hein, who introduced the term but credits friend Sean Connolly with coming up with the phrase, notes in the companion website, JumpTheShark.com, that it was "the point at which the writers have clearly exhausted all possible creative ideas for the show." The phrase has become so common that "jumping the shark" has come to refer to other cultural products - movies, music, celebrities, companies, organizations - that have started to decline. As in, "Paul Martin has so jumped the shark." The Jump the Shark website is an encyclopedia of entries and discussions about your favourite (and not so favourite) shows and whether they jumped. Jump the shark moments can often be categorized, too. An example of "same character, different actor" is when Dick York was replaced by Dick Sargent on Bewitched. How about relying on a "special guest star" to maintain viewer interest, like when Nancy Reagan guest starred on Diff’rent Strokes? Or when David and Maddie "did it" and changed Moonlighting forever? Among the television shows that the Jump the Shark community have decided never jumped are Barney Miller, The Odd Couple, Magnum, P.I., The Rockford Files, Fawlty Towers and The Simpsons. I’ll bet you never look at Grey’s Anatomy or Lost the same way again. 5 Forum messages |
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