Today, we look at when (or if) you folks believe that Glee “jumped the shark.”
This is “Just Can’t Jump It,” a feature where we examine shows that launched in 2006 or later and whether they “jumped the shark.” Jumped the shark means that the show had a specific point in time where, in retrospect, you realize that show was going downhill from there. Not every show DOES jump the shark. Some shows just remain good all the way through. And some shows are terrible all the way through. What we’re looking for are moments where a show that you otherwise enjoyed hit a point where it took a noticeable nose dive after that time and if so, what moment was that?
The great Jon Hein had a website devoted to this topic, but he sold it off in 2006 and after being maintained for a couple of years it was then merged into TV Guide in 2009, so I figured it’d be fun to look at shows that launched after the sale and see what we all think about whether they jumped the shark and, if so, when did it happen? Starting this week, I’ll start an archive listing each show along with the current answer for each one (and then update it with the new show each week).
Today, we look at Glee, the musical comedy/drama about a glee club at a high school.
So first…DID IT JUMP THE SHARK? Definitely. It was a shadow of its former self by the time it ended.
WHEN DID IT JUMP THE SHARK It’s possible that it was earlier than this, but definitely by the time the main cast graduated and the show continued to follow them to college. I think the new cast (even though the new cast had some very talented people on it, like Melissa Benoist) was when it jumped, because the show just stopped making any sense at all.
Feel free to e-mail me at brian@popculturereferences.com for suggestions for shows for us to do in future installments!
Yes, I think that is probably the moment if jumped the shark, but I think it may have started when the focus moved away from Mr. Schue (remember when he was off in Washington, DC, for a bunch of episodes?). IIRC, Ryan Murphy had said originally that the show would stay at McKinley High and not follow the students after they graduated and would leave it up to the audience whether Rachel would make it on Broadway or not. Obviously, this was not how the show proceeded. Maybe Lea Michele was just too big a star for Fox to let go of
By the original definition, Glee jumped the shark before the cameras ever rolled. Jumping the shark involves something so contrived, or so ridiculous, that it reduces a show to self-parody. Glee had a contrived, ridiculous premise to begin with.
I have to agree with Ed to an extent. I watched an episode in the first season, and it seemed like a soap opera with musical numbers. I asked my brother who was a fan about it, and he explained the plot to me, and, yes, it was a soap opera with musical numbers.
I heard that the second-season revamped the show a bit, and it got better, but I’ll probably never know.
The phantom pregnancy storyline in the first season. It takes a lot of effort to make me actively dislike a character, but I could never get over the character they wrote for Jessalyn Gilsig.
The music was great though. They could have just made a show of talented post-teens covering pop songs and the show would have been 200% better. And Kristin Chenoweth.
I think I can pinpoint it down to the moment (and it’s earlier than the splitting up of the cast). There was an episode earlier that same season (season three) that dealt with Karofsky attempting suicide, and it was one of the show’s strongest episodes…until the ending completely undercut the episode’s message by having Dianna Agron’s Quinn involved in a potentially fatal car crash due to screen distraction. That inability to just pick ONE damn lane for a WEEK had always been a problem, but it was never so violent and abrasive. That was the moment it became clear that the writers were just tripping over their own feet.
Everyone has their own opinion of things. I went back today and watched several episodes from different seasons and Glee Jumped the Shark early on in season number 1! The characters were weak and some just obnoxiously acted. Not worth watching and the switchover to new main characters was a bomb and proof the premise of the show should never be attempted again.
Glee: Cop Rock only longer and more excruciating.
I watched Glee through any inanity to absurdity, but I stopped about five episodes before the series finale because of an episode in which the out-of-control Sue Sylvester had somebody trapped in an elevator and she rigged it to be a torture chamber.
As a comics fan who can’t stand to see the villains win, Sue Sylvester grated on my nerves. The bit where she framed the principal, making him appear to be a sex fiend just to steal his job, should have been enough for me to stop, but I soldiered on. But I couldn’t last all the way to the end.
They really didn’t know WHAT to do with Sue. It was really baffling.