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Hey, ThatSunrise

Fatal car crash from the cliffhanger a month ago wasn't actually fatal; the pretty blond just has to sit in a wheelchair for a few VERY. SPECIAL. EPISODES. and learn about life from Wheelchair Boy's eyes, and they'll probably date, blah blah blah.

Also, most of the cast was barely there as the entire episode revolved around Blaine and his never-before seen older brother, who he envies. Musical numbers so-so, and are all done by the Blaine brothers.

This is the kind of episode you do after most of the original cast has left around season 7. No. This is an "ER Season 13" episode, where the ragged remains of old supporting casts suddenly make up the main cast and we're supposed to care about them like they suddenly transformed into Clooney and Julianna Margulies.
 
Sometime between mid-season 1 and mid-season 2, the show stopped being a dark dramedy about its core of characters and also started very-self consciously being a cynical promotion machine that sold songs. The show was still able to hit home runs in some scenes and even some episodes, where the emotions of the characters resonated strongly and the songs very strongly supported and expressed the character's feelings and situations. I stopped trusting that the writers would coherently write characters episode-to-episode, and any long term development was rare and unearned, but there were always moments when the show looked like it was on firm footing and remembered what had ever made it good.

Tonight, I realised that I was no longer trusting the writers to write coherent characters from one scene to the next, and that the songs were actually emotionally stronger when divorced from the show's context.

(And seriously, the girl who had a huge car accident and is forced to be in a wheelchair, possibly forever, just shows up at school and literally says "Well, kids, there's a lesson for you: don't text and drive. Second worse think I've ever done, after fucking Puck over there.")
 
"jumping the shark" is kind of played out as a phrase, don't you think? It's lost a lot of its zip. These days when a show goes that quickly from good to awful, I prefer to say it has been Kutchered.
 
Different meme. Kutchered is the new Prinzed, where a show that loses its main star tries to keep going with a cheap replacement character.

Jumped the Shark is just so perfect, it may live forever.

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Eggs Mayonnaise said:
Different meme. Kutchered is the new Prinzed, where a show that loses its main star tries to keep going with a cheap replacement character.

Jumped the Shark is just so perfect, it may live forever.

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I think it should be reserved for rare occasions when a show does do something randomly stupid like the eponymous scene, rather than merely fizzling out.
 
I remember an episode of Diagnosis Murder with vampires. Real vampires. That's jumping the shark in style (not that it was ever under it).
 
I remember a Diagnosis Murder episode that had five or six Trek actors in it. Pretty much every scene had another one pop up. From memory, there was Wil Wheaton, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Grace Lee Whitney and Majel Roddenberry. It was still barely watchable, of course.
 
I remember that one! Bill Mumy was in it as well, and it was some kooky shit about alien abduction.
 
Fuddlemiff said:
I think it should be reserved for rare occasions when a show does do something randomly stupid like the eponymous scene, rather than merely fizzling out.
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It's both really -- Jumping the Shark means the show resorts to stupid ideas because they have completely run out of fresh ideas for the existing characters and storylines. It's the point where people say "yeah, they should have stopped making shows at that point."
 
CaptainWacky said:
I'm pleased that Glee ended up being bad.
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:(

The first season was magical, like lightning in a bottle. But I guess it was easy to tell that it wasn't a concept meant to run for several seasons and still retain the same magic. It's going to end up like Skins or Degrassi, I guess (which is what it doesn't want to be) -- after the first cast moves on, it will become a workhorse show that puts a revolving door of new characters through similar storylines. But I don't think Fox or the audience expected it to end up quite so pedestrian, so I'd bet that it will end after next season. The ratings are still okay but they've been falling. Then again, the same is true of every show on broadcast TV...
 
I just remembered a second reason that I quit! It came a few episodes before, but was probably more important than this last episode.

So there's this character Sebastian. He was basically Gay Hitler - trying to steal Blaine from Kurt, bullying Kurt, and just being an all around arrogant ass jerk person the whole season.

Then he threw a cup full of fine gravel in Blaine's face (and eyes!), forcing Blaine to spend a couple of weeks at the hospital.

Two weeks later, he shows up again, after another gay tried to kill himself. We see a brief flashback of Sebastian being mean to the other gay at a bar at some point in the past. He immediately apologises to Kurt and Blaine for being a bad person.

~~he is redeemed by the show at this point~~


Like seriously the show wanted us to believe that all it took for a brief moment of feeling guilty and saying "I'm sorry", and suddenly he was a good person. That's probably, in retrospect, the moment I lost trust in the writers.
 
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