Is It Jumping the Shark if You Never Come Down?
Full disclosure: I stole this question from Supernatural, the TV show that won my heart when it jumped the shark — and never came down (so far).
Joss Whedon’s TV show Dollhouse just did this (despite already being cancelled, waahh). Breathtaking.
Maybe I should back up and define jumping the shark for those of you who weren’t born when a little family TV show called Happy Days aired. This show had a leather-jacket, motorcycle-riding, bad boy named The Fonz. He could do anything, get any girl, teach the nerdy main character Ritchie how to be a man, etc. But, one day, when the show had run on too long and the show writers were really tired, they had Fonzie jump the shark. Literally. Picture a leather-jacketed figure on water skis, jumping a shark. Yep. They did. And, deservedly, the moment a TV show’s writers start to write in action that audiences have to strain to even peripherally buy…that’s called jumping the shark.
Yes, as Supernatural and Dollhouse have amply demonstrated this year, it is possible to jump the shark — as long as you don’t come back down to earth. Want your characters to star in their own books — written by an author who sees what’s going to happen before it does? No problem. Make the writer a character. Make the characters try to figure out how to beat his vision of the future. Make it part of the story.
It takes a genius, though, not to come back down. Which makes me want to try it. I just need to figure out how to avoid coming back down.
Kelly
