New List - The shows that jumped the shark

[troutman]

Of course opinions on TV shows are very subjective, but Breaking Bad ratings on Metacritic:

Season 5 = 99
Season 4 = 96
Season 3 = 89
Season 2 = 84
Season 1 = 73

When we come to list the best TV episodes of all time, Ozymandias should be at the top of the list.

http://www.metacritic.com/feature/br...andias-reviews

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Sorry Cap, I have to completely disagree with Buffy. Seasons 6 and 7 were both strong. That show never jumped the shark.

.

Still watching, maybe jumping the shark is a strong term for it, but the vision change, all of the characters suddenly went against what we had seen over the first 5 years. There was a lot of solid stuff in Season 6. The Troika was a great misdirection for the blind side later. But it was a season that had solid episodes but wasn't a strong coherent story, and I hated the idea that the Willow fall was an addiction based thing more then anything else. That was just silly.

But in terms of solid episodes Once More with Feeling, Tabula Rosa, Dead Things, Hells Bells, Entropy, and the final four episodes from Seeing Red were all very good, but there were too many episodes that were just dour and not great.

I think the final season was a mess, I admire the idea that the show wanted to end the series with the Big Bad to end all Big Bads, in terms of the First Evil. But it didn't work. And in a season that was supposed to he back, she was either dour or angry through the whole thing to the point where they made fun of her in the episode Story Teller when she starts to make a speech to her army, and Andrew points the camera at himself and basically says "This could go for hours and nobody listens". But a non physical shape shifting villain just didn't work, and while Caleb went a long ways to solving the problem, there was no real final confrontation at the end of the final episode, and it fell flat for me, because Buffy in the end didn't beat or kill or banish the first evil, it basically left.

In terms of quality while season 6 wasn't horrendous, it just didn't measure up to 1-5, season 7 was really bad and the show limped to its conclusion.

Ranking the seasons

Season 2 - Really great season, and Angelus as a villain really set things up for this show for a long time. Also Spike and Dru
Season 3) - I loved the mayor this was really a fun season to watch.
Season 1) - Was a shortened season but really strong, every time the Master opened his mouth I was hoping to hear "What is that . . . a twisted sister pin . . . on your uniform)
Season 5) - Really strong season, and they hit a home run with Claire Kramer as Glory. I honestly thought in the end that they hinted at a return of the Ripper as a Villain.
Season 6) - It was dour and really depressing and a times a slog, the Troika was good, AH playing evil was great, but the addiction thing was kind of a silly way to justify what she was doing.

Season 4) - Just fundamentally failed and felt forced on a lot of levels, Adam just wasn't a good villain, as the expression of the combination of mystical and science as a thing of evil didn't really work.

Season 7) - I just didn't enjoy this season, the villain fell flat, Caleb was great though.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Matata

lest we forget that the series climax of BB was Ozymandias

fyp.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Sorry Cap, I have to completely disagree with Buffy. Seasons 6 and 7 were both strong. That show never jumped the shark.

Yes it did. It clearly jumped in Season 4, with a brief pause over the shark tank for "Hush". Then it sort of jumped back in season 5 and 6, or at least hovered over the shark tank, sort of undecided about what side it ultimately should be on, before finally jumping it for good in season 7.

Buffy's a weird show once you get past season 3. A lot of garbage interspersed with moments of sheer brilliance.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by troutman

Of course opinions on TV shows are very subjective, but Breaking Bad ratings on Metacritic:

Season 5 = 99
Season 4 = 96
Season 3 = 89
Season 2 = 84
Season 1 = 73

You see that with any series of movies/TV/games, etc. The further you go the higher the ratings, because who don't like the early parts simply don't stay with it. So you have a self-selection bias.

The last season of Breaking Bad was good TV. But the problem with any dramatic series that goes past three seasons is you need to keep raising the stakes, and so the situations get more and more outrageous. If a show has any kind of romance angle, you eventually run through every permutation of coupling. If it relies on action sequences, they need to get bigger and more bombastic.

For shows like Breaking Bad, which are rooted in gritty and realistic depictions of human behaviour, that's a problem. The rules of plausibility that governed the early seasons eventually get thrown out the window.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by troutman

Of course opinions on TV shows are very subjective, but Breaking Bad ratings on Metacritic:

Season 5 = 99
Season 4 = 96
Season 3 = 89
Season 2 = 84
Season 1 = 73

When we come to list the best TV episodes of all time, Ozymandias should be at the top of the list.

http://www.metacritic.com/feature/br...andias-reviews

I think the hype train was so big into the last season that the ratings fell into the hype as there's no way anyone should agree that season 5 was the best of the series. I know lots of people that didn't even watch the first three seasons and hopped on board when the show started picking up word of mouth in the last few seasons so if you binge watched a bunch of seasons and picked up at the last season or two you probably don't get the same overall perspective of watching the show over the course of it's seasons.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

You see that with any series of movies/TV/games, etc. The further you go the higher the ratings, because who don't like the early parts simply don't stay with it. So you have a self-selection bias.

Maybe. There is also a bias that things were better in the good old days.

The Wire - 79, 95, 98, 98, 89

GOT - 80, 90, 91, 94, 91, 73, 77

Arrested Development - 89, 88, ??, 72

Walking Dead - 82, 80, 82, 75, 80, 79,

BB seems to be the exception, where critical acclaim peaked at the end.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I think the hype train was so big into the last season that the ratings fell into the hype as there's no way anyone should agree that season 5 was the best of the series. I know lots of people that didn't even watch the first three seasons and hopped on board when the show started picking up word of mouth in the last few seasons so if you binge watched a bunch of seasons and picked up at the last season or two you probably don't get the same overall perspective of watching the show over the course of it's seasons.

I was a big fan of both halves of season 5, and started watching live at the beginning of season 3. I don't know that I would necessarily say they were better than earlier seasons, but I think they were as consistently good, had some of the best episodes of the series and provided a satisfying conclusion. I was a pretty big fan from when I started watching, but I didn't start thinking it was the best show on tv until around season 4.

[nik-]

It always bothered me that they brought in the bikers as the big bad at the end of Breaking Bad. He goes from battling with smaller segments of the cartel to bikers. Meh.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Yes it did. It clearly jumped in Season 4, with a brief pause over the shark tank for "Hush". Then it sort of jumped back in season 5 and 6, or at least hovered over the shark tank, sort of undecided about what side it ultimately should be on, before finally jumping it for good in season 7.

Buffy's a weird show once you get past season 3. A lot of garbage interspersed with moments of sheer brilliance.

Responding to both you and Cap. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this! I like season 7 a lot and think it had great stuff in it. Season 4 was clearly the weakest season in my mind. One and 7 were probably next weakest, but were still great. Agree with cap that the super forced addiction storyline for Willow was bad. Although I think it seems worse now in 2017 than it did when it was first airing in 2000 or whatever year it was.

[Matata]

Off the top of my head trying to rank Buffy seasons (best to worst): 2,3,7,6,5,4,1

Loved season 7 because it was dark as #### and how they ended the series. Season 6 was a lot of fun as it was the only season without a Big Bad looming over everything (until the very end) and the nerds were a lot of fun.

Hard to decide if 4 or 1 was worse, 1st had a lame Big Bad and the show struggled to find itself, worst I can say about 4th was that it was bland for a long time.

Could do a anti-shark jumping thread, moments when shows got awesome. Buffy is clearly when Spike shoves the chosen one in a box and incinerates him in sunlight because he got annoyed with him.

[Manhattanboy]

The most recent season of GOT. Everything suddenly happening at warp speed. John Snow's rescue from the frozen lake.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

The most recent season of GOT. Everything suddenly happening at warp speed. John Snow's rescue from the frozen lake.

I think the last good season was season 4. Careful presenting a negative opinion on GoT though, the fanboys will come for you with knives!

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

The most recent season of GOT. Everything suddenly happening at warp speed. John Snow's rescue from the frozen lake.

Game of Thrones is a tough one for this conversation. It's like if you were making a big poster and you tried to write out Calgary Flames, but by the time you got to "Calgary Fl", you realized you only had room for another letter or two and had to write tiny little "ames". Is it the writing of the little "ames" that sucked or using way too much space writing the first 9 letters.

I bet the writers wish they could go back and cut away a lot of bloat from the first 6 seasons so they could have advanced the series at a more consistent rate and finish out the story properly. If they kept going at the same pace, they'd need another 10 years to finish it all off.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Suits
Boardwalk Empire

Not specific on when, but both started going downhill after strong starts. Suits just went complete pile of...

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Suits just went complete pile of...

Immediately after they completely abandoned the original premise of season one?

Although I don't think that's actually jumping the shark. It's not like it went on too long it just turned into poo in a hurry.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by nik-

It always bothered me that they brought in the bikers as the big bad at the end of Breaking Bad. He goes from battling with smaller segments of the cartel to bikers. Meh.

Bikers?
You mean the nazis?

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Suits
Boardwalk Empire

Not specific on when, but both started going downhill after strong starts. Suits just went complete pile of...

Boardwalk Empire suffered the same fate as so many shows: instead of building towards an ending, they tried to quickly wrap everything up in a season. As the cherry on top, they tried to bring the story back to the beginning in the final scenes...but it just didn't make enough sense storywise.

You really have to appreciate when a series ends on a high note.

[activeStick]

Prison Break quite easily for me. The series while they were in the first prison was one of my favorite TV shows ever but once they escaped, everything went to crap.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Prison Break quite easily for me. The series while they were in the first prison was one of my favorite TV shows ever but once they escaped, everything went to crap.

That's one where they should have changed the cast out after they escaped the first prison rather than have the original cast just globe-trotting around to different prisons to escape from.