TV jumped the shark...

[RobertScorpio]

Usually we talk about specific shows that jumped the shark. But when, if at all, do you think the quality of TV took a dive? I actually think TV has rebounded in the past several years. I didn't watch much TV in the 90s because, to me, it wasn't that good...

Rob Scorpio

 

[sidious618]

It has been at its best lately.

 

[RobertScorpio]

It has been at its best lately.

I actually agree to the extent that HEROES, for me, has slid. But LOST and 24and HELLS KITCHEN and American Idol and Wipeout and Brave and the Bold are doing good for me...

Rob

 

[NileQT87]

Heroes is at one of its peaks right now, IMO. I seriously don't get it. I just loved season 3. It's probably my favorite season of the whole bunch.

As for television... Well, I'd say most of my favorite shows were sort of in that late '90s/early '00s period (Angel, Buffy, Roswell), but I consider a lot of the shows now to be part of that cinematic television revolution. T.V. has gotten way better than it used to be. Sure, there have been some amazing shows historically, but I've also seen some things that used to air on television that are best left blocked out of one's memory. The glean of nostalgia has done a good job of erasing a whole lot of what used to be aired.

I'm still trying to brain-bleach away the mimes dancing to the Chipmunks Christmas music on the Frank Sinatra Timex Show "Welcome Home Elvis" special. A lot of those variety shows are best remembered only for their highlights. As great as the '70s SNL was, about 50% of the episodes make you want to pull your eyeballs out--and yet, there is some classic, amazing stuff in between a lot of crap.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Heroes is losing me because no one can die on that show. I think it jumped the shark because Nathan kept coming back to life. And each season they find away to dumb down Peter and Hiro. And then they spend all season getting their powers, or memories back, or whatever. FORMULA for a show that, at first, was trying to be different. Now its just another show with on going mysteries and..well.. I watch. But LOST has regained its mantle as the better show between the two, IMO..

Rob

 

[Kelthaz]

American prime time TV is pretty horrible, but if you're willing to look around you can find some great shows to watch. TV is probably better now than it ever has been.

 

[SilentP]

I reckon it's a case that there's a lot of gems being made these days, but you have to search through a lot more crap to get to there than there used to be.

 

[NileQT87]

Unfortunately, "a lot more crap" might be your gleam of nostalgia forgetting what used to be in between those classic shows.

Granted, there is a lot of crap on television... but it has always been there.

If only they'd get rid of the reality shows. It's like the new variety show, except the variety shows were [mostly] better.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Unfortunately, "a lot more crap" might be your gleam of nostalgia forgetting what used to be in between those classic shows.

Granted, there is a lot of crap on television... but it has always been there.

If only they'd get rid of the reality shows. It's like the new variety show, except the variety shows were [mostly] better.

Umm..The Hudson Brothers? Donnie and Marie? No way. I'll take HELLS KITCHEN over that rubbish any day of the week.

Rob

 

[Hermiod]

It jumped at the end of the 90's Star Trek/X-Files/Babylon 5 sci-fi boom for me.

It's been going downhill rapidly ever since. We still get some glimmers of hope, like Battlestar Galactica, but I can definitely see the day when I don't watch regular TV anymore.

 

[NileQT87]

Let me put it this way... American Bandstand (and all rock'n'roll-based shows) over American Idol. Donnie & Marie, Sonny & Cher, other celebrity hosts of the era, etc... over American Idol. You pretty much have to get down to the Lawrence Welk show before I start considering preferring modern music shows. And even then I might actually go for Lawrence Welk. I'd watch the epitome of stodgy, boring music (Lawrence Welk) over modern melismatic song-murderers. I really hate melisma. Granted, I prefer American Idol over what they put on MTV, BET, etc... Now that's horrific.

As far as comedy shows... The old ones were better.

As far as dramas... Today's. No question about it. Especially the fantastical ones.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Jumped the Shark moments for TV:


1. When any celebrity can get a TV show documenting their life (Heff and the Playboy wives, Denis Richards, so forth...)


2. When you can turn to any news channel -- I'll use FOX in this example -- and see "FOX News Alert" in red, with the dramatic music, making you think it's something important, but in reality it's some random car chase in California, or some dumb shit is about to give a speech in five minutes.


3. Reality TV.


4. Reality TV getting picked up another season.

 

[Starbreaker]

I think a lot of the long running procedurals need to be put out to pasture, but TV is on the up and up.

 

[Mr Light]

The late 90s had a nice overkill of sci-fi and fantasy shows. Now there's hardly anything left. That said, the past few years have been the best ever for comedies. Particularly the years Arrested Development was on

 

[barnaclelapse]

I don't know if you can say it's ever taken a dive. That's one of the things I like about SNL. It can almost be used a metaphor for television itself. It goes through radically different extremes of highs and lows, and it's almost impossible to predict the rate of those highs and lows.

Right now, it seems like there's some pretty good shows out and about. I don't follow much, but that's more because I'm too lazy to get into a show than anything else.

TV comedy has taken a bit of a hit in recent years, but even that has seen some pretty decent shows.

 

[Deckerd]

There hasn't been much to impress me recently but then I discovered The Wire. No wonder it has the tag of the best TV show ever.

 

[Warp Coil]

I feel that television is always in a state of flux. One market segment or genre might be thriving while another is failing. As it stands right now, network TV is in shambles. I'm finding fewer and fewer shows that are of high quality that interest me. Each season, I'm watching less and less. Reality TV refuses to die. However, cable TV is in a renaissance.

 

[startrekwatcher]

I actually really enjoyed tv in the 80s/90s. The last decade has been rather hit and miss. There have only been a few shows that I thought were innovative and interesting like Lost. Primetime news programs aren't good anymore, there is a glut of CSIs and L&Os, too many lame reality shows where even channels like VH1 and MTV have hardly anything to do with music anymore, sitcoms are dumb not funny. And yes this decade is no different with shows appealing to teens but they are nowhere near as interesting or entertaining barring one or two.

But one thing I miss is the old style serialized dramas where there was a modest ensemble and two or three parallel season long arcs where the writers took the time to actually develop everything. A lot of time these days there are too many characters and a lot of stuff is treated simply as plot points and the pacing is too fast. They just jump around from one thing to the next. And character deaths are so cavalier and uneventful anymore that they've lost the impact that they once did.

Also I've noticed shows that start out really strong have a short shelf life. Take Heroes for instance. It had a great first season and a decent second season but completely came off the rails in its third season. Shows don't seem to be able to put out four or five consistently good seasons like they once did before jumping the shark. Same for a cable show like Damages.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

There are more shows than ever on TV now that I like to watch vs any other time I can recall. Mainly thanks to Showtime, HBO and AMC. The growth of cable is good news for viewers, bad news for networks, which are increasingly irrelevant to anyone who isn't interested in watching people sing badly or fall into a mud puddle for their "entertainment."

The writing on Heroes is inexplicably bad compared with the first season. It boggles my mind how everyone just forgot how to write a good story - was it really just Bryan Fuller rewriting everyone else's garbage w/o credit? However, the characters and the premise still interest me and I gotta give them credit for trying their best to keep us entertained, even if it requires hilariously off kilter charaterization and characters behaving like morons.

 

[Barbados Slim]

Agreed. Cable has made television better than ever. Writers, directors and actors have found a medium to tell the stories that were previously reserved for feature films but has fallen out of favor because of the ridiculous cost of getting a small movie made.

Another thing that is better than ever is the miniseries. While we think of "Meteor!" and "10.5" cable, HBO specifically, is really showing what you can do with an epic story that would take too long to tell in cinema. Look at House of Saddam, Generation Kill, Elizabeth I and the grandaddy of all miniseries, Band of Brothers. The Pacific is coming next year to be the other grandaddy.

Along those same lines, television writers are learning that their 10-13 episode seasons of cable shows can play out like chapters in a novel, like The Wire, True Blood, Mad Men, The Tudors. There's a connection with literature too. True Blood and Dexter are based on book series. A Song of Ice and Fire is in development. The Wire went as far as attracting authors like Dennis Lehane (Gone Baby Bone, Mystic River) to write episodes and consult. Adaptations provide seasons worth of source material so you don't have the concern of writers getting tired around the middle of season 3, which is where most network shows tank creatively (Lost, Heroes, Grey's Anatomy, and on and on...). The only non-cable show that's an adaptation that I can think of is Legend of the Seeker and it's very good.

Yes there's way too much reality TV but I also agree with the above poster that it's better than watching the stuff from the 70s like variety shows, Hee Haw and Lawerence Welk. That was insufferable. But the good thing is that if I don't want to watch shows about people who are only famous for being famous like Paris and Kardashian and Speidi, then I just don't watch them because there's 200 channels and a device that records what I like without me having to remember the time and channel. Hallelujah!

The biggest telltale is that the stigma for doing TV doesn't really exist anymore. TV is now where aging film stars can thrive and get some great material. And you see film producers, directors and writers (Doug Liman, Jerry Bruckheimer, McG, Peter Berg) involved in TV projects while still having strong film careers.