Re:Jumping the sci-fi shark
› Forums › General Sci Fi › Sci Fi Angst › Jumping the sci-fi shark › Re:Jumping the sci-fi shark
I think Babylon 5 jumped the shark with Season 5. It remains one of my favorite sci-fi series of all time, but it was never quite as good after Captain Lockley came on… EXCEPT of course for the last episode of all, BUT that episode was actually made BEFORE Season 5, back when they thought the show was ending at Season 4. So I dunno that it should count.
My personal feeling is that JMS was pretty sure the show was gonna get killed at the end of Season 4, so he went ahead and wrapped just about everything up. Then, when TNT picked things up for one more season, he had to come up with more story. Thus, to me anyway, the whole telepath thing felt tacked-on.
On a related note, my friends an I have come up with another term, “punched the shark.”
A series has “jumped the shark” when it makes a horrible mis-step that renders it never quite as good as it used to be. The term originates from an episode of “Happy Days” when Fonzy literally jumps a shark.
Alternatively, a series has “punched the shark” when it is bad to begin with, but then does something that makes it THAT MUCH WORSE. 🙂 Our term originates from the movie Tomb Raider 2, when Angelina Jolie’s Laura Croft literally punches a shark at the beginning of the movie.
Once she punched that shark, we knew we were in for a rough ride. 🙂