Jump the Shark???

Thought you might be interested in a website I stumbled onto -- it's a forum for TV fans to identify/debate the moment a TV show began going downhill.  It is called: http://www.jumptheshark.com/ (named for the episode where Fonzi rides his bike over a shark tank a la Evel Knevel).

Here is a sample of the comments entered about this show.   

Twin Peaks 

 
  a.. The show was so great all throughout its first season; but the way they segued into a second season with the Laura Palmer-look-alike business (already covered) and the hunt for the one-armed man devolving into basically a big x-files operation - definite shark-jumping. 
  b.. When Laura Palmer's killer (Bob) was identified but he was just a spirit or something jumping from person to person. 
  c.. When they revealed Who Killed Laura Palmer. It was all downhill from there. Shoulda been a mini-series. 
  d.. Twin Peaks was well named! It had scores of PEAKS and valleys. But just when you thought the writers had painted themselves into the most ridiculous of corners, they'd bounce back with something amazing. Twin Peaks NEVER jumped the shark! It may have come dangerously CLOSE at times, but it never actually made the awful leap shark jumping implies. 
  1. Twin Peaks is generally regarded as a watershed in television programming.
  2. Twin Peaks begat scores of imitators and 'like-minded' programs- X-Files, Millenium, etc., yet it remains the best of the genre. 
  3. Twin Peaks was shat on regularly, in time slot placement, idiot-ABC-executive interference (Who Killed Laura was NEVER meant to be revealed--this was only done to appease idiot-ABC-executives), and general confusion regarding how to best promote it. Despite the onslaught, Twin Peaks continues to survive and THRIVE in memoriums across the WWW, because people LOVE it to this day. 
  4. Twin Peaks had something for everyone: mystery, horror, humor... if you couldn't find something you liked in the Twin Peaks mix, you gave it away that you were obviously a big "Joanie Loves Chachi" fan. 
  5. Twin Peaks NOT jump the shark. Twin Peaks, while it had its shaky moments, was genius brought to life; a glimpse into the most bizarre slice of small town life we are ever likely to see. 
  e.. Ten years after I first saw it, just finished watching all the episodes. First I thought it jumped after Laura died. Now I realize we all just got spoiled. Nobody -- NOBODY! -- before or since has created the same kind of atmosphere on this medium. If this kind of groundbreaking uniqueness doesn't meet the "never jumped" test, nothing does. Hosannah! 
  f.. Although it approached the ramp in several categories, it never jumped. I just read all of the posts above and maybe I'm mistaken but, for everyone who complained about the way the show ended, didn't ABC up and cancel it after the second season? I didn't ever think that David Lynch and Mark frost intended to leave it hanging there. I have the box set and have seen every episode several times and yes; James and Donna got to be a bit much (we're not talking Deniro and Streep here) some of the weirdness got excessive and the whole "James-Evelyn" story arc flat out sucked. That being said...I can't think of any other hour long drama that comes close to matching the level of creativity that TP pulled off. 
  g.. Awesome show up to this point. But the downward spiral was bound to happen when the killer was revealed. Some of the cool things in Twin Peaks. 1. Sheryl Finn and Joan Chen 2. Commentary about the Douglas firs by Cooper. 3. See number 1. 4. Cool backward talking munchkin. This was talked about alot in how they did it. The munchkin actually said his lines and words backwards in real life and then they played them forward for the show. That is how they got the effect. 4. See number 1 again. 5. Flashing lights in episode 1 while Cooper checks out the body in the morgue. 6. See number 1 again. 7. First American show to really breakthrough in Japan. This led the way later on for X-files in Japan. (can you imagine Twin Peaks with Japanese people..hahahahaha) Overall I agree that this should have been a 5 part miniseries maybe. In the end her Dad should've been the killer cause he either drank too much of that great coffee or sniffed too many Douglas Firs. 
  h.. Twin Peaks went downhill from the beginning because it was always apologetic for occultic type intrigues, symbols, gematria, masonry, kabbala, what-have-you. If they had made a TV show that was a factual telling of how the U.S. was taken over by Satan's army 150 years ago and Americans were put to sleep so that they wouldn't notice, I would have liked that. Otherwise, David Lynch is just as useless and harmful as people like Bill Clinton and George Bush. 
  i.. Never jumped, just got better after they did away with 'who shot?' and got into Lynch's usual themes - red curtains, identity confusion, fire, dead women. 
  j.. After we knew who Laura Palmer's killer was. It began to get a little silly--not that it wasn't before, but the silliness just didn't seem to fit. I am a huge Twin Peaks fan but those who think that the show didn't "jump the shark" at some point are simply idiots. Most people didn't care about character development....they liked the "who killed Laura Palmer" plot and the simple weirdness of it all. 
  k.. I still miss Twin Peaks -- it set the standard for atmospheric, incomprehensible television which still proved unmissable. I think it fell down a bit after Laura Palmer's cousin showed up but I will forever be in David Lynch's debt for introducing me to the wild actress shenanigans of GRACE ZABRISKIE (Mrs Palmer) -- that woman can do the slo-mo-freak-out-culminating-in-nerve-shattering-howl move better than anyone out there. 
  l.. This show jumped as soon as they solved Laura Palmer's murder. The rest of the second season was spent trying to keep the audience interested. The problem was: this show should have been a mini-series, not a weekly series. BUT, the first season, and particularly the first two or three episodes were fantastic! Creative, gripping, and entertaining. Why don't we see this kind of creativity any more on network television? 
  m.. We were spoilt by the total quality of this fantastic show. The way that humor and drama were combined together with a genuine sense of terror at times has never been bettered and maybe never will be. 
  n.. While watching the reruns of it on cable, I was surprised to see that there weren't any episodes I didn't like. That is until Episode 16 (17 if you include the pilot): "Drive with a Dead Girl". This is the one where Leland Palmer "kills himself". After this episode, the show seemed to lose its focus and became too involved in the goofy subplots. The show replaced a creepy, ominous atmosphere with a ridiculous one (Nadine going to high school?!) The showed tried to get back on track with Windom Earle, but he just wasn't menacing (he had no mystery b/c they showed too much of him). Also, for me, there was a large disparity between those episodes Lynch directed and the ones he didn't. I did like the final episode, though I have no idea what the hell happened. 
  o.. Twin Peaks was a television marvel, it broke all the rules of what a TV show sould be. It was just fantastic, but unfortunatly, the bosses upstairs were too ignorant to see how great a show they had. It definitely never jumped. 
  p.. One of the best shows to ever hit the small screen. The whole series is classic as a whole, but could have never been the same after they lost their creator to a bunch of production committees that knew nothing about story-telling and characters. 
  q.. Never jumped the shark. Twin Peaks is a classic and it would be shame to desecrate the greatest television ever by implying that its consciously surreal touches (backwards talking dwarf) and sardonic soap opera parody (cheryl lee returns as ... her own cousin!) were somehow shallow appeals for ratings. Now, it's true, when bodies started showing up in chess pieces, some of us wondered what the hell was going on. But how can you accuse a show of commercialism that used its last episode to show the demonic fall of its beloved saintly main character, that ended with a bang, a big f-you to the ABC suits and the American viewing public. 
  r.. Never Jumped...tho came periously close at times. Just finished re-watching the first season on DVD, and again was stunned with its complete brilliance. Could this have been the best show on TV ever? Then followed up with watching the second season on old Vid tapes. (Ewwww..spolit by the marvel that is DVD) Id forgotten the seemingly overnight character changes. Its like the writers of the second season hadnt even watched the first. Very nearly a different show. Enjoyable, tho different than Twin Peaks. But the number one problem that struck me again and again whilst re watching? The Pilot show in Washington state looked georgeous, all misty air, diffuse lighting, rain, trees, and dark. The rest shot in California, and quite often you would see bright sunlight, the wrong trees, hills that didnt fit etc etc. If ever a show needed to be filmed all in one spot, this was it 
  s.. There is no way in hell that this show ever jumped the shark. Sure,it was strange at times,and yes James was one of the WORST characters ever to grace television,but the brilliance of Ray Wise and that guy that played "Killer BOB" made up for anything that was bad about this show.....I recently saw every episode of this show....and boy.....ths was the SHOW.....I watched it on and off when it first aired....but I was only 15 at the time and did not get alot of it.....I have a memory of turning on my TV late Saturday night to watch the news.....I caught the last ten or so minutes of Twin Peaks....and it just happened to be the episode when Leland kills Maddy in his own living room....I remember watching that scene on a TV without cable....kind of bad reception ...and saying to myself..."What the hell is this??""..However...a truly fantastic show...to bad that the movie "Fire Walk With Me" was such a turd 
  t.. Twin Peaks was the best show on television EVER! Nothing has ever been as creative. It had a mood. The characters were bizarre, and wonderful. It should never have been taken to a second season. It was conceived as a mini-series and it should have stayed that way. I loved it still though until the very last episode. The finale was the worst thing they could have done. It almost made me wish I hadn't watched the series from the start. Was this Lynch's revenge to the ABC executives? Who knows. 
  u.. I can forgive Twin Peaks for revealing Laura's killer. We all loved the quirky characters and would have been even more disappointed had the show not continued on. I can forgive Twin Peaks for using supernatural storylines like the fact that Bob is a shadow creature that jumps from one host to the next (whaaa? I was 14 when it aired, even I smelled something fishy...). I am now 25 years old and while Saddam, terrorists, serial killers, and foreign beef scare everyone else, they do not scare me. Bob scares me. In fact,he terrifies me. I can watch a million horror movies and not be bothered, but when he is in the Hayward house crawling over the couch...aaarrrrrgggghhhh-Jesus, I can't watch it with the lights off, because then I have nightmares for weeks! I can forgive Twin Peaks for the Windam Earle thing-who knew Coop let down his moral standards long enough to bop his partner's wife? Good character development, but as someone mentioned, it was a little cartoonish with his "evil tricks." I loved watching Leo as his stooge, though. That was priceless. I can forgive Twin Peaks for Josie in the doorknob-how, you ask? I pretend that episode does not exist. But Twin Peaks jumped the shark when David Lynch transferred it to the big screen with a prequel. Nobody cared about Laura Palmer at this point-we wanted Coop, the sheriff, and the weird ass Black Lodge with dancing midgets and giants, and all of the other characters that we loved, not Laura. However, even with the movie, this show should be a standard to which all other dramas are measured-normal, eccentric, and downright weird characters, great plotlines and dialogue (making beauty out of the mundane-"a damn fine cup of coffee") and the surrealness and isolation of a Washington state small town. My family and I still lament its absence from television, even though the Sopranos and Six Feet Under are just as amazing. Network television claims that they can't compete with HBO because of nudity and cursing. Too bad they have created shows that were on the same par then doomed them to cancellation. Thank god for video and DVD, or I would be stuck watching the crap the networks put out for the rest of my life. 
  v.. Despite the whines of "It jumped after they revealed Laura Palmer's killer..!", the show *never* jumped. The show was called 'Twin Peaks', not 'Who Killed Laura Palmer'. Once the whole LP Arc was concluded, it opened up the door to a lot more of the oddness and general weird vibes that exist within this apparently sleepy, quiet little town in the mountains of Washington State. 
  w.. I agree that TV was absolutely ruined for me after they cancelled TP. I have yet to find a director that can force his antagonists into my dreams on a regular basis. Bob takes the prize, of course, but Robert Blake's (The Lost Highway) character appeared for weeks on the silver screen of my dreams... 
  x.. My feeling? It would have been better as a mini-series consisting of the first season. Having said that, I think it jumped the shark then came back to life several times during the second season before the network jerked it off the air. (The episode where Leland/Bob kills Madeline -- essentially killing Laura a second time -- was one of the creepiest, most intense episodes of them all!) 
  y.. To the person who asked about David Lynch developing another show with ABC, he was but ABC rejected it. This eventually became the movie Mulholland Drive. If you haven't seen it already, then by all means SEE IT! You'd won't be sorry. Anyways, Twin Peaks never jumped. It slowed down a little after Laura Palmer's killer was revealed, but it came back. For everyone who thinks it would have been better if they would have just never revealed Laura's killer, think about it. As good as the idea of spending an entire television series focusing on one murder case sounds, the audience would want a resolution eventually and they would need to solve it. David Lynch did the right thing by finally resolving Laura's murder but leaving other questions unanswered. The true theme of Twin Peaks was about the evil in the woods that took the form of the Killer BOB, and the murder of Laura Palmer was just the surface of that .