Wow! Excellent point! Totally agreed on Hotlips and Mary-Ellen, too. At least "That 70s Show" covered the short hair sported by a returning Kelso by putting him into the police academy.
Did Star Trek Jump the Shark?
- Thread starter OverJoyJackson
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Wow! Excellent point! Totally agreed on Hotlips and Mary-Ellen, too. At least "That 70s Show" covered the short hair sported by a returning Kelso by putting him into the police academy.
I think it's worth noting, and I think I can safely say it without exaggeration, that the media property or "franchise" that is the whole of Star Trek (as opposed to just TOS) is absolutely unlike any other media property in the history of media. There is simply nothing, no matter how successful or widely known or well respected, that compares to Star Trek in terms of just the sheer volume of material, let alone the dedication and devotion of the fanbase.
Sometimes I think we Trek fans, in our constant hunger for more and better Trek, forget just how much Trek there is in comparison to other properties. Star Trek comprises five live action television series, an animated series, eleven feature films, tie-in stories such as novels and comics that are too numerous to mention, and a virtually unlimited supply of related merchandise. It has spanned a period of 45 years since it's inception and yet still, in its most recent incarnation, spawned an enormously successful blockbuster film and is currently producing another film.
How many other franchises can lay claim to that? Heck, how many movie franchises can have their most financially successful, blockbuster-level film be the ELEVENTH movie in a series of successful films?
My point in saying all that is that it seems clear to me that Star Trek as a whole has never jumped the shark. Yes, there are always, as with any TV or film series, pockets of material that are not up to the same quality as others. But for every "Spock's Brain" or "Threshold" that Trek has produced, how many absolutely magnificent hours of material has it produced? And if you expand and compare it to the utter garbage that comprises a good percentage of modern television and feature films, it begins to look even more stellar.
No, Trek has yet to jump the shark. It may eventually, but even if it does, taking 45+ years to get there is not bad at all...
Sometimes I think we Trek fans, in our constant hunger for more and better Trek, forget just how much Trek there is in comparison to other properties. Star Trek comprises five live action television series, an animated series, eleven feature films, tie-in stories such as novels and comics that are too numerous to mention, and a virtually unlimited supply of related merchandise. It has spanned a period of 45 years since it's inception and yet still, in its most recent incarnation, spawned an enormously successful blockbuster film and is currently producing another film.
How many other franchises can lay claim to that? Heck, how many movie franchises can have their most financially successful, blockbuster-level film be the ELEVENTH movie in a series of successful films?
My point in saying all that is that it seems clear to me that Star Trek as a whole has never jumped the shark. Yes, there are always, as with any TV or film series, pockets of material that are not up to the same quality as others. But for every "Spock's Brain" or "Threshold" that Trek has produced, how many absolutely magnificent hours of material has it produced? And if you expand and compare it to the utter garbage that comprises a good percentage of modern television and feature films, it begins to look even more stellar.
No, Trek has yet to jump the shark. It may eventually, but even if it does, taking 45+ years to get there is not bad at all...
Mobile Suit Gundam and Doctor Who disagree with you.
What schism?
You mean the current one against JJ Abrams?
The one against Berman and Braga?
The one against the idea of a TNG TV series, set 78 years in the future, and without Kirk and Spock?
The one against "dumbing down of ST", as several people I know refer to ST IV.
The incredibly negative schism against ST:TMP?
The one against TAS?
The one against TOS Season 3?
Despite TOS asking us to appreciate "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations" (IDIC), many ST fans are extremely reluctant to embrace, or even tolerate, a ST that challenges their personal concept of what ST should be.
TOS perhaps jumped the shark with Spock's Brain., maybe a little earlier.
TNG was perhaps over the shark already with the first two seasons, before unmounting it by season three.
Perhaps the introduction of Alexander in season five was the start of a gradual decline that was more evident over the next two seasons.
DS9 improved as it went on, as season one was mostly filler. Why they persisted with the wretched Ferengi and Mirror Universe episodes I don't know, so those threads had long ago jumped the shark.
VOY seemed to perform shark jumps and recoveries on a regular basis as it was quite an inconsistent series. Perhaps the premise jumped the shark early in the show's run.
ENT jumped the shark sometime around season two, maybe with A Night in Sickbay. It was dragged back though from season three onwards, and ended reasonably strongly.
So perhaps TOS was the only show that actually jumped the shark in the 'correct' way? Maybe TNG too if I'm being particularly harsh?
TNG was perhaps over the shark already with the first two seasons, before unmounting it by season three.
Perhaps the introduction of Alexander in season five was the start of a gradual decline that was more evident over the next two seasons.DS9 improved as it went on, as season one was mostly filler. Why they persisted with the wretched Ferengi and Mirror Universe episodes I don't know, so those threads had long ago jumped the shark.
VOY seemed to perform shark jumps and recoveries on a regular basis as it was quite an inconsistent series. Perhaps the premise jumped the shark early in the show's run.
ENT jumped the shark sometime around season two, maybe with A Night in Sickbay. It was dragged back though from season three onwards, and ended reasonably strongly.
So perhaps TOS was the only show that actually jumped the shark in the 'correct' way? Maybe TNG too if I'm being particularly harsh?
Perhaps you haven't heard of this little show called Doctor Who, which started 3 years earlier that Star Trek, is still on TV today. Has hundreds of books including Audio books. Usually pulls in around 7-8m (final figures) viewers. In US terms that would be 30m+ remind me again what was ST pulling in at the end of it's TV run.
Yes ST has had a massive influence but there are other franchises that have had an impact. Maybe not as much as in the US as ST had
It also spent a looooooong time in hiatus and received extremely spotty distribution in the USA. It was rarely discussed in magazines such as "Starlog", was not available on commercial videotape, and many of its early episodes have been lost. In many parts of the US, it was virtually unknown, at least until that failed telemovie reboot was attempted.
In Australia, "Doctor Who" was always screened on our non-commercial public broadcast station which, until only very recently, had viewer ratings that were barely a glimmer on the radar. What figures did old b/w DW get in the UK?
By contrast, ST has had eleven major motion pictures. I also can't recall a "Doctor Who" tie-in novel reaching the bestseller lists.
We're probably attempting to compare apples with oranges.
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