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When Star Trek 'JUMPED THE SHARK'

Captain Tracy

Commander
Red Shirt
So at what point, or in what episode, do you feel STAR TREK 'JUMPED THE SHARK'?


For those unfamiliar with the term, From The WIKI:

The phrase jump the shark comes from a scene in the fifth season premiere episode of the American TV series Happy Days titled "Hollywood: Part 3," written by Fred Fox, Jr.[5], and aired on September 20, 1977. In the episode, the central characters visit Los Angeles, where a water-skiing Fonzie (Henry Winkler), wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket, jumps over a confined shark, answering a challenge to demonstrate his bravery. For a show that in its early seasons depicted universally relatable experiences against a backdrop of 1950s nostalgia, this marked an audacious, cartoonish turn towards attention-seeking gimmickry and continued the faddish lionization of an increasingly superhuman Fonzie. The series continued for nearly five years after that, with a number of changes in cast and situations. However, it is commonly believed that the show, out of ideas and even trapped in its own success (largely due to the disproportionate popularity of the "Fonzie" character and the show's (executives') intense desire to continue "milking" that), began a downhill slide, becoming a caricature of itself often filled with little more than its popular catch phrases and character mannerisms.

220px-Fonzie_jumps_the_shark.PNG
 
We recently had a thread on this topic, but IIRC, with respect to the entire franchise.

There is a case that Spock's Brain jumped the shark. On the other hand, there's also a case that Star Trek never jumped it. I believe both points were argued in that thread.
 
Spock was clearly the Fonzie and though with "SuperSpockSavesTheDay" it came close, it never actually jumped.
 
It didn't. The original series was already doomed before the so-called "bad" season 3 was aired.

That Trek is still being made today (literally, TODAY, in LA), after MANY mind-bogglingly terrible episodes, lacklustre movies and bewildering books over the decades, shows it's pretty shark-jump proof.
 
For me, Star Trek never jumped the shark. Came close to jumping the Paedocypris Fish in a few S3 episodes maybe - but only close mind you.
 
Never. TOS, TNG and VOY got weaker in the end, DS9 kept its quality and ENT became better in the end. There have been ups and downs, simple as that.
If we limit the discussion to TOS, sure, the last season is clearly the worst but it's not like it is totally horrible whereas the former two are superb. There are actually many memorable episodes in it, e.g. Tholian Web or Savage Curtain.
 
ST jumped the shark with eps like The Way To Eden, Plato's Stepchildren, And The Children Shall Lead, Patterns of Force, This Side of Paradise, Spock's Brain etc.
 
if you're going to pick a point, you'd pick season 3 obviously, but though it was a step down, there were still a lot of good episodes, and it's a better season than a lot of TV Trek that came after.

I'll take TOS season 3 over TNG season 1, or ENT seasons 1 and 2, for example.
 
Never. TOS, TNG and VOY got weaker in the end, DS9 kept its quality and ENT became better in the end. There have been ups and downs, simple as that.

Disagree. Voyager was never strong enough to become weaker. I'd say it Jumped the Shark sometime around "Scorpion".
 
Star Trek IV - heavily commercialized in industrial proportions. The shark jumped Star Trek. After that is was an all out feeding frenzy.
 
When Paramount bought Desilu. Tighter budgets meant less ambitious stories and more bottleneck shows with the main three on TOS. I recently read an old interview with Martin Landau who said that the budget cuts imposed by Paramount really crippled Mission: Impossible, too. So I guess that puts the time frame at the middle of season 2 after the tribbles show??
 
What's bad about the episode? Sure, its message is a bit simple and not entirely true (fascism might have the appearance of rigour, discipline and so on but beneath the surface lied the promise of carnival: we head East, pillage, rape, murder and have a lot of fun) but it's well done and there is some eye candy for the ladies in it.
 
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