6 signs your favourite TV show is jumping the shark
All good things must come to an end, but while some TV shows know when to walk away, leaving fans on a high, others stagger on when they really shouldn't.
From stale plot lines to key character exits, these are the signs that your favourite TV show is going down the sh*tter.
1. The main star leaves
The Office US was only as strong as the sum of its parts, so when one of those parts left because he didn't want to get "too comfortable", the sitcom began a gradual decline of no return, eventually wrapping up after nine seasons.
Sure, the cast was very much an ensemble, but 'Goodbye Michael', the show's season seven finale in which fans said farewell to the "World's Best Boss" Michael Scott (Steve Carell), was a blow, and a strong indicator that the sitcom was not long for this world.
Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) and Robert California (James Spader), despite their strengths, were no match for Michael's sheer lunacy, Carell's performance infused with a comedic brilliance that was impossible to replicate. Plus, the focus switched to Angela, Oscar and Andy who again, just didn't cut it.
The show lost its heart, and after two sub-par seasons it was time to say goodbye.
The same can be said for The X-Files. Central character Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny, had been present and correct since the show first aired back in 1993. But Duchovny became embroiled in a dispute with Fox over his contract, which meant that he only appeared in half of season eight's episodes and the season nine finale – and the show paid a price.
Fans didn't warm to his replacement John Doggett (Robert Patrick) for the simple reason that he just wasn't Mulder. And while that wasn't his fault, the entire setup suffered.
2. Pointless characters are introduced
Scrubs should have called it a day at the end of season eight when JD (Zach Braff) walked out of Sacred Heart for the final time. It's a heartfelt moment, the show's central character confronted by the "ghosts" of people who influenced his time as a young doctor learning his trade, before moving on to the next chapter of his life.
This episode, which is titled 'My Finale', was actually supposed to be the show's last, and would have been the perfect ending.
But foolishly, Scrubs powered on for another season as Scrubs: Med School. It was set more than a year after the 'My Finale' episode and in a brand new location, Winston University, with a raft of new faces: Lucy (Kerry Bishe), Drew (Michael Mosley), Cole (Dave Franco), and others.
JD, Turk (Donald Faison), Perry Cox (John C. McGinley) and a number of old favourites are all around, but by no means central to the plot, which is a problem because they were the ones we cared about, not these new cats.
Sure enough, season nine received the show's lowest-ever ratings, 3.79 million people tuning in opposed to 5.61 million. Word to the wise: Know when to quit.
3. Things become increasingly ridiculous
TV might demand a lot from its viewers, but the public will happily jump on board if it feels right. However, there are times when our favourite shows have taken it too far and the plot becomes increasingly convoluted, oversaturated with dizzying twists and turns that give us a headache, and very little else. Enter Lost.
Despite the exciting flash-forward at the end of season three when we find out what life was like for The Oceanic Six when they finally returned home, the following season - the first episode of which is aptly titled "The Beginning of the End" - fails to give viewers any answers to the many questions that the series had raised.
The time jump certainly felt like a clever device at the time, but it left gaps rather than filling them in – and by the time the drama drew to a close, we were all left scratching our heads, wondering about key conundrums that should have been answered, like why the island moved in the first place, or what was the significance of the numbers, and how was Jacob connected to that?
Another show that also became far too complicated for its own good was Heroes. After a blisteringly strong first season in which the entire show hinged around the "Save the cheerleader, save the world" tagline, there were too many story arcs to contend with and not enough conclusions – and unsurprisingly, it was eventually cancelled after becoming less concerned with its characters and more focused on its overcomplicated mythology.
Heroes creator Tim Kring did say that his approach was not to plan the series too far in advance... but perhaps that was the problem?
4. Old plots are rehashed
After a strong start, fans of The Vampire Diaries started to experience a significant bout of déjà vu that just kept on rolling. There was a consensus that seasons one to four were fast, fresh and kept viewers on their toes. But from season five onwards, Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec's show had run out of steam.
Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder), Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) and Stefan Salvatore's (Paul Wesley) love triangle might have initially made for captivating viewing, but by season eight it was long past its sell-by date, with every avenue having been explored, and then explored some more...and then explored even further.
Numerous other storylines and narrative devices, most of which involved someone dying, then being brought back to life, before dying once again (with a potion or two thrown in for good measure) quickly wore thin.
It was a show where the life-death continuum didn't mirror that of the real world and there's only so many resurrections one person can take.
5. Characters lose their sense of self
Cecily von Ziegesar and Josh Schwartz, the brains behind Gossip Girl, would argue that the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite are so toxic, that anyone dragged into their high-stakes atmosphere would be forced to behave in a totally unexplained, out-of-character manner.
But while little Jenny Humphrey's (Taylor Momsen) extreme departure from the sweet, butter-wouldn't-melt persona of her early days into rebellious, untamed angst felt entirely natural, others were behaving in ways that just didn't chime.
Vanessa Abrams (Jessica Szohr), who started out as one of the good guys and had an extremely durable (or so we thought) moral compass, completely lost what makes her tick. Vanessa acts out in a number of confusing ways, including cheating on Aaron Rose with Dan Humphrey in the novel series, and stealing Dan's book to sell it to a publisher for ten thousand dollars in the TV series.
And it wasn't just Vanessa's character that was flipped entirely on its head. Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), who makes her disdain of Dan exceedingly clear from the very beginning and takes great delight in torturing him whenever possible, ends up falling in love with Lonely Boy himself – a storyline that had fans up in arms because it just wasn't Blair.
There's something to be said for shaking up the established order, but not like this.
6. It's lost its magic
The hook that first draws people into a show can so easily become lost in response to its growing acclaim, and there are some who believe that Downton Abbey, despite its continued popularity throughout its six series run, became a victim of its own success.
Julian Fellowes' period drama captivated the viewing public with its Upstairs Downstairs-esque tone, and the deft interplay between the Crawley family aristocracy and that of their domestic servants. The dialogue was strong and the show packed with fleshed-out, interesting characters, many of whom viewers liked and could, on many levels, relate to.
But then things began to shift, and not in a good way. Not only were a number of the best characters killed off, many people felt that the people behind the show were trivialising some extremely complex debates.
Matthew Crawley's miraculous paralysis recovery was a missed opportunity to present what life would have been like for a paraplegic during the early 20th century, delving into a subject that is more often than not marginalised – and then there was the controversial rape scene in season four, in which Anna May Bates (Joanne Froggatt) was subjected to a horrific and brutal attack by Mr. Green (Nigel Harman).
Many felt that her rape had been used for dramatic effect, rather than to encourage genuine and meaningful discussion, in turn denting the show and its legacy.
Bidisha SK Mamat, a journalist writing for The Guardian, said that "raped women are not objects to be used to shake up a dull plot or add juice to a sanguine character", and she stressed that "the pen must be in the hands of those with humane interest".
Downton did many things right in the early going, but it ultimately over-stretched itself and lost something in the process.
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