Midnight-Blue766
The filidh that cam frae Skye
I think TV Tropes can say it better than I can:
God, No! A moment that you don't like has happened in your favorite fictional series! A new character appeared out of nowhere! Or your favorite character got the Idiot Ball that week! Or there is a Musical Episode not written by Joss Whedon!
The shark has been jumped over! Your show is now Ruined FOREVER!!!
What? Ruined forever?! Get A Hold Of Yourself Man!
Sure, it might have been a dumb moment, but how do you truly know until the series has run its course? What if the new character turns out to not be The Scrappy, as you feared? What if your favorite character is never handed the Idiot Ball again? What if the plot for that BLAM Episode was Just for Fun, and the rest of the series sticks to what it does best?
The show isn't made by gods (despite what some may assume). People make mistakes. Shows can have low points but still have high quality throughout the run.
Just take a few deep breaths. You may think you have seen a clear Jumping the Shark, but those are rare moments. Take the actual Jumping The Shark from Happy Days. That moment was clear for at least three reasons:
It was completely against the premise of the show, which was a loving homage to the last generation.
Fonzie was no longer the Breakout Character who was a role model to some; now he had mutated into a full-fledged Canon Sue.
It was identified upon retrospect 20 years later, meaning it had the benefit of hindsight and it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction.
How could the show fix that without ignoring the episode completely? There are plenty of other ways to jump the shark, but those are rare diamonds of crap... in the rough of crap. It's near impossible to tell when a show has jumped the shark until after the fact. The variety of the votes on Jump The Shark are a testament to that. Worse, if people are just rushing to declare jumping the shark for any moment they don't like, it comes across as Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.