- This topic has 65 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Do you think that show jumped the shark?
If you do, when do you think it happened?
If you don’t, why?[adrotate group="5"]"All your questions are pointless"
Shark jumping is a term that means a stunt or story line designed to bring back viewers. The jump is often over the top, loud, shiny, and disingenuous to the show as a whole.
It’s hard to answer because of that last part. In a way, yes, because that’s what the Frozen arc was. It was meant to draw viewers who had fled back in and bring brand new viewers to the show. It capitalized on the Disney phenomenon when it was still hot instead of waiting until the movie had become a classic or at least aged a few years. A and E even admitted that they had a different ending for S3B but changed it to Elsa in the barn after they got permission to do Frozen.
The problem, I guess, is that while it was clearly meant to be a ratings grab (and, to be fair, a grab that worked for the first 3 or episodes) it does fit with the themes of the show. I didn’t care for it at all, but the idea of a hidden villain (the Duke), sisterly love (Elsa and Anna), and a misunderstood woman with powers (Elsa) fits pretty comfortably in the show. It wasn’t disingenuous to most of the fabric of the show.
So was Frozen a shark jump? Yes but with the caveat that it might be a logical one.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"@RumplesGirl Frozen would have actually work with me if it was less Disnified (I just made up a word) and had more incorporation of the original snow queen tale where she had interest in Henry (psuedoKia) whose truest believer heart subsequently turn to ice after the loss of his dad. This could have possible weaken the power of the book and messing with the magical properties of the town. What happens if the truest believer wavered in his belief in hope and happy endings. It would have been a nice way to tie in the tragic travesty of season 3B and gives characters a proper mourning period.
However, I assume they didn’t want to do the whole lets save Henry again arch or address that elephant in the room at the time. But this maturing storyline that haphazardly placed together for Henry would have work nicely into 4B QOD plot where in the end Henry goes into his finale quest to as the new writer. At least in my head it would…. shrugs.
Well that was a confusing jumble of a mess i just wrote lol.
"I will be kind but I will speak my mind."
There have been some other would-be-shark-jumps though, again, I’m not sure if they 100% qualify.
–S3A finale. It was a giant reset button (A and E have even called it that); it was designed to bring new viewers in by allowing the show to start over. BUT it was never advertised. Only those of us who watch the spoilers knew what was going to happen at the end. It was hyped to the extent that shark jumps often are. It also didn’t save the show. The ratings continued to be in line with S3A….until Frozen at the first few episodes of 4A.
–Emma becomes the Dark One. Everyone by this point has accepted that Emma is the true savior and ultimate wielder of light/true love magic. Oh no! She’s been infested by the Darkness. Just as the audience was about to look away, the rules of the game changed. Suddenly the Savior is the Devil. Problem is, it fits with Savior mythology. It’s familiar enough to people who read Harry Potter (or…any high fantasy) or have watched BtVS or Star Wars. The Hero is corrupted/tempted into the Dark Side.
–Neal’s Death is a huge turning point for a lot of us here, obviously, but I don’t know that it’s a shark jump. It was illogical, disingenuous, with no emotional follow through but that’s the problem. It wasn’t a totally outlandish storyline that yielded more outlandish storylines. It barely registered to the characters at all. Neal’s death is something to the narrative of this show, but I don’t think we can label it shark jump.
–Hook and Emma kiss in NVL: hyped to the hilt. We had gifs, pictures, articles, and video up to TWO WEEKS before the episode aired. It was all over social media. You couldn’t avoid the spoiler even if you wanted to. But it didn’t really do anything for the ratings on the show. That episode, 305, had a very slight uptick but in the end, 305 was about middling in terms of ratings for that arc, S3A. However not all shark jumps work. Some most definitely do. The Frozen arc most definitely got us to a S5 because the ratings started off so much higher. But if the CS kiss was a shark jump, it was a failed one because while certain corners of the fandom ate it up, it didn’t do anything to bring new viewers in. It also isn’t *totally* outlandish. Even some of the most ardent SFers agreed that Emma and Hook would have a small relationship before parting ways, her for Neal and he for the sea.
The short answer is really: you’re asking a complicated question that has a complicated answer.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Oh, one other thing that I do think qualifies Frozen as being a shark jump (even with the “it fits!” qualifier from my first post). The arc of S4A largely focused (almost exclusively) on the Frozen gang. They were not guest stars who only appeared when the main cast needed them to, but they more or less took over the show. Almost every centric had then worked in somehow, something OUAT has never done before. Every scene with the exception of the long arching Author search was tied to Frozen and what the Frozen crew needed.
It’s like bringing on a really cute kid and making every episode about that cute kid and their antics, taking time away from the other characters. (Looking at you Cosby show, when they introduced Olivia to the character line up).
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Oh, one other thing that I do think qualifies Frozen as being a shark jump (even with the “it fits!” qualifier from my first post). The arc of S4A largely focused (almost exclusively) on the Frozen gang. They were not guest stars who only appeared when the main cast needed them to, but they more or less took over the show. Almost every centric had then worked in somehow, something OUAT has never done before. Every scene with the exception of the long arching Author search was tied to Frozen and what the Frozen crew needed.
It’s like bringing on a really cute kid and making every episode about that cute kid and their antics, taking time away from the other characters. (Looking at you Cosby show, when they introduced Olivia to the character line up).
We even had flashbacks that either had no regulars or a regular only made a cameo appearance.
“A Tale of Two Sisters” – Anna, Elsa and Kristoff. None of the regular cast were involved.
“White Out” – Anna and David.
“Rocky Road” – Elsa, Kristoff, Hans and Ingrid. None of the regular cast were involved.
“The Apprentice” – Anna, Rumple and the Apprentice.
“Breaking Glass” – Emma and Lily. One of the few flashbacks not to include the Frozen characters. Ingrid does appear when Emma and Hook look through Emma’s old camcorder, but it wasn’t a part of the main flashback, and Ingrid was at least an original character to OUAT.
“Family Business” – Belle, Anna, Elsa, and Ingrid.
“The Snow Queen” – Ingrid, Gerda, Helga, and the Duke. Rumple appeared, but only for one scene, so it’s not like the flashback heavily involved him.
“Smash the Mirror” – Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and Ingrid. Again Rumple appears, but only for one scene, and this was a flashback over the course of a 2 hour episode.
“Fall” – Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and Hans. None of the regular cast were involved.
“Shattered Sight” – Emma and Ingrid. Another flashback not to feature the Frozen characters, at least not the ones from the movie.
“Heroes and Villains” – Rumple, Belle, and the Queens of Darkness. Another flashback not to feature the Frozen characters.So yeah, the problem was that since almost all of the flashbacks in 4A were about the Frozen characters, that took character development away from the main cast.
I think the show jumped the shark right around the time they killed off Neal and none of the other characters acknowledged how huge it was and seemingly just moved on with their lives as if nothing had happened.
The 11/11 split has not been good for the show. They’re trying to cram a season’s worth of plot into half a season so everything seems rushed, threads are left hanging, questions aren’t answered.
Character development is poor. It’s hard to care about the characters writing wise, it’s only because the actors put so much heart and soul into it that they manage to carry the scene. Characters are plot driven rather than adhering to natural character development.
All in all the show is dying a slow and painful death. THe best we can hope for is that the characters at least marginally resemble their former selves by the end of it.
All magic comes with a price!
Keeper of FelixOkay, here are my thoughts:
As much as 4A screams the jumping the shark moment, I honestly think it happened before.
In my opinion the moment was Neal’s death. It is not necessarily the death itself, but how it happened and what followed. The fact that they forgot about him 2 episodes later didn’t help, the fact that Zelena, knowing what Neal means to Emma, think that she would kiss Hook like few days after Neal died, this is not Zelena, this is the manipulative writing, which killed Neal for Emma and Hook to work. The way they wrote Emma and Neal didn’t allow for Emma and Hook to happen. Season 3B already had the rushed pairing of Robin and Regina, and now we get Hook and Emma. Neal’s death symbolizes the end of the show as being a show about family and hope, which was the main narrative for season 1-3A, since Neal had a lot of familial connection to the main characters. The show since then became about ships and this has become the thing that drives the show, not to mention that since then the writers has cared about the eyes more than the actual story they try to tell.
"All your questions are pointless"
It is not necessarily the death itself, but how it happened and what followed.
But that’s not a shark jump. That’s a turning point that leads to jumping the shark; that’s why I said Neal’s death was SOMETHING but not a shark jump. Jumping the shark occurs when a show is in decline and needs some sort of outlandish storyline, guest or new character in order to draw ratings and viewers with the main goal being to stay on the air for longer. But in order for a shark jump to happen, what came before has to be a lackluster, poorly received, declining show. You can’t have the Fonz jump over a shark in the first three seasons because the show was still popular, highly rated, and laudable. He only jumps over the shark in S5 when the viewers are leaving in droves and the show is becoming long in the tooth. The writers want to keep it slogging on for another few seasons so…insert a literal shark jump (and hence the term). The quality never again picked up, but the main goal (staying on the air by having people tune in for this “big event”) was achieved.
Season 1-3A was not that decline. In fact, a good portion of fans think those are the strongest storylines of the show because they are about family, strong women, and mostly good morals instead of about romantic love, ships, and women who depend on strong men.
The problem we’re suffering from in this thread is definition because everyone knows the term “shark jump” but aren’t really applying it properly. Neal’s death is a turning point that shifts the themes of the show from family to romance. Frozen is the shark jump designed to get viewers to stay so that the show can slog on for another few years (a goal that was achieved because the first few episodes out of the gate for 4A was so high that the the fall to the end of the season was longer and not as steep which allowed ABC to very easily agree to a S5)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
The topic ‘Did Once Upon A Time Jump the Shark?’ is closed to new replies.