The Laws of Shark Jumping

[blahflowers]

So, I've worked out two so far. OK, the first is more a 'how to spot a show has jumped the shark'...

1) The number of main characters goes down and they aren't replaced. Buffy, gets rid of Faith, Angel, Riley, Joyce, Giles and Tara.

2) You think episodes that take the piss out of your show are a good idea. See X-Files 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space' or that vampire episode. Or SG-1's 'Average Joe'. What, taking the piss out of your fans is a bad idea? Emphasising the crappy bits of your show's past is a bad idea? Who'd of thought it?

Comments

[ill-prezidante.livejournal.com]

The show exceeds logical progression.

Look at it on this scale. Buffy gets chosen, learns role, accepts role, forms posse, overcomes ever harder challenges and fights ever harder monster until the point where the group fight and overcome a god. Appreciably the aftermath and ressurection are completely nessecary in terms of the story but then what? There is nowhere left to go with that, which would lead to what I understand to be a running series of intertwinned vignettes around the characters with occasional monster slaying. Something of a volte face from the original fiat IMO.

Fair enough though because, after beating a god there is nothing that can be thrown at them that they can't handle. Unless of course you have to resort to minor challenges complicated by personal issues which nearly kill characters.

Although the more harsh critics would claim shark-jumpage at the point where absurd plot devices are employed, such as everyone having to sing, all the way through. It just sounds like it got trawled from a badly run RPG.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Well, that's why it's good and smart that Buffy ended when it did. I think that season 6 was a good follow up to the Glory thing because it went in the opposite direction with Warren and Willow. Season 7 was very much that "we covered everything now, let's wrap it up and bring things full circle." I respect that. But the execution in that season leaves a lot to be desired. You're right, since they beat Glory, they had to top that, and they had to do The First, which in theory is a good idea because it trumps Glory in terms of power and scale, but it just wasn't that compelling, and it felt too hokey at times.

[ill-prezidante.livejournal.com]

I really shouldn't comment on this as I've only ever seen about four and a half episodes ever. One of those was a latter Glory episode with a bunch of faux British people telling Buffy, in as faux twee a manner as possible, that Glory wasn't a demon. About two years later I saw a post resurrection episode that seemed to be trying to go back to the lighter writing style of the opening season. It came off as rather forced and thin.

Maybe I've only seen bad episodes but I've never really understood the attraction of the series. Then again "Once More With Feeling" is a much lauded episode and that's an hour of my life that I want back.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

That season 5 episode with the Watchers Council is "Checkpoint," I LOVE that episode! That episode is way better in context. I didn't like Buffy either when I only saw occasional episodes out of context. You kinda need to watch it all in order to get the maximum pleasure out of any given episode.

[ill-prezidante.livejournal.com]

I suspect that I will end up forgoing that pleasure. I can barely find time to watch an entire british series (usually 8-10 episodes) let alone a full 7 american seasons of a series.

I will endeavour to lament this between terrorising sunday afternoon rollerbladers and some Lady Snowblood in the evening but I make no guarantees. Despite my best efforts I just don't think that I'm a TV person at heart.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

I understand. The circumstances of my living situation over the past couple years allowed me to devour entire seasons of shows over the course of a week or so thanks to the netflix dvd service. If I was in a more normal situation, it would never have happened like that. I'm pretty grateful for putting in the time with Buffy, Angel, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, etc.