May 03, 2007

Amen, Ross

Ross Douthat, on his new Atlantic blog, expressing sentiments I've long held myself:

"Can we please retire the phrase "jump the shark"? It started as a specific term for a specific moment in the life cycle of a television show - the point of no return, the moment when a show is lost to its downhill slide - and has gradually turned into a general term thrown out to describe any episode, or series of episodes, that isn't up to snuff. So this season of Lost, which has been generally mediocre and went through a stretch of truly terrible episodes, first sparked debates about whether the show had gone shark-jumping, and then - once things got a little better - about whether it was possible to "un-jump the shark", which is like debating whether you can return from the, um, point of no return."
How many times did "The West Wing" jump and un-jump? What about "Six Feet Under"?

Posted by Stephen Silver at May 3, 2007 04:53 PM
Comments

In other words, when did "jumping the shark," itself jump the shark?

Posted by: Dave J at May 5, 2007 10:31 AM
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