`Jumping the Shark' with L&O
Eugene Kim
Not that the latest episodes are *frankly* awful - I'd have to say that,
for the most part, they're "competent." Or "adequate." And if you're
familiar with the "glory days" of L&O, then "adequate" can seem so
totally inadequate.
Is everyone here familiar with the Web site jumpingtheshark.com? It's a
very funny site that encourages people to express their opinions on when
a TV series "jumped the shark" - that is, reached a point of
irreversible decline. For example, for some viewers, "Bewitched" "jumped
the shark" when Dick Sargent replaced Dick York as Darrin Stevens. That
sort of thing.
I haven't contributed to that site, but I believe L&O has "jumped the
shark," and I have my opinion as to when. Actually, it's kind of a
two-part jump. The first was around the time Angie Harmon showed up -
I'm not blaming Ms. Harmon personally, only using her presence as a
reference. There were some fine episodes featuring Harmon's Abbie
Carmichael, but there also seemed to be a lot more misses than hits
compared with seasons featuring her predecessor, Jamie Ross. And when
Dianne Wiest joined the cast, the "jump" was complete. Now everything
seems so flat and uninspired. In its early days, L&O had a knack for
taking inspiration from a real-life case and putting its own fascinating
spin on it - now, the real-life cases seem more interesting than the
fictionalized ones.
I was prompted to write this because I've just seen an A&E rerun of
"Grief" from season eight - the one about the pregnant comatose woman.
When that episode first ran on NBC, I thought it was a good, not great,
episode. I'll say this much for the recent string of mediocre first-run
shows - they sure make you appreciate the older episodes more. Seeing
"Grief" again, I was struck by how well-crafted the plot was. The
teleplay is credited to a Suzanne Oshry - even though she's apparently
not one of the regular L&O writers, she turned in one terrific script.
One of my favorite moments is when Jack McCoy confronts the legal
dilemma he faces by telling Adam Schiff, "There's no damn solution,
Adam." But McCoy comes up with a solution, of sorts - no dopey deus ex
machina riding to the rescue here.
I can still watch L&O reruns from earlier seasons and marvel at the
finely woven detail of both the police investigation and resulting
prosecution. Now the show just goes through the motions. It's so sad -
one of my favorite TV shows has "jumped the shark."
James
>
>Is everyone here familiar with the Web site jumpingtheshark.com? It's a
>very funny site that encourages
Unfortunately, yes. A nice idea that has been overused, to the point where a
show that makes a single error "jumps the shark." If L&O began today, and one
of the bad S1 episodes had aired, people would say the show had "jumped the
shark."
>I haven't contributed to that site, but I believe L&O has "jumped the
>shark," and I have my opinion as to when.
After Mike Logan left, and after S7. Season 8 is when the slightly noticeable
decline in quality begins, and the freefall grows worse with each season.
S9 is my final choice, because S9 is when they began dulling the edges of every
character, writing them as paper dolls, and cutting the heart out of the show.
Chuck Eaton
> >I haven't contributed to that site, but I believe L&O has "jumped the
> >shark," and I have my opinion as to when.
>
> After Mike Logan left.
Amen, brother.
WtchyWmyn
it "Jumped the Shark" with Aftershock. There were some good eps with Carrie
Lowell, but after Aftershock, I knew it was downhill from there.
xoxoxo
Beth
pageofbats
==============
Chuck Eaton wrote:
Amen, brother.
==============
Yabbut, now we have that pretty pretty Detective Green...
Walt Parker
> I've stopped watching the new episodes of L&O. They're so depressing.
> Not that the latest episodes are *frankly* awful - I'd have to say that,
> for the most part, they're "competent." Or "adequate." And if you're
> familiar with the "glory days" of L&O, then "adequate" can seem so
> totally inadequate.
The newer episodes are probably not as good as the so-called "glory
days", but if you saw "Myth of Fingerprints" a couple of weeks ago,
that was arguably the best episode in at least three seasons, and one
many feel S. Epatha Merkenson deserves an Emmy nomination for.
> Is everyone here familiar with the Web site jumpingtheshark.com? It's a
> very funny site that encourages people to express their opinions on when
> a TV series "jumped the shark" - that is, reached a point of
> irreversible decline. For example, for some viewers, "Bewitched" "jumped
> the shark" when Dick Sargent replaced Dick York as Darrin Stevens. That
> sort of thing.
> I haven't contributed to that site, but I believe L&O has "jumped the
> shark," and I have my opinion as to when. Actually, it's kind of a
> two-part jump. The first was around the time Angie Harmon showed up -
> I'm not blaming Ms. Harmon personally, only using her presence as a
> reference. There were some fine episodes featuring Harmon's Abbie
> Carmichael, but there also seemed to be a lot more misses than hits
> compared with seasons featuring her predecessor, Jamie Ross. And when
> Dianne Wiest joined the cast, the "jump" was complete. Now everything
> seems so flat and uninspired. In its early days, L&O had a knack for
> taking inspiration from a real-life case and putting its own fascinating
> spin on it - now, the real-life cases seem more interesting than the
> fictionalized ones.
Quite interesting because "L & O" began its current ratings spike just
as Angie Harmon joined the cast. I was one of a lot of men who started
watching "L & O" when she joined the show (spending most of the summer
of 1999 catching up on older episodes), and actually thought she did
fine as Abbie. The problem was, a number of people absolutely hated
her, and she was probably toned down as a result.
> I was prompted to write this because I've just seen an A&E rerun of
> "Grief" from season eight - the one about the pregnant comatose woman.
> When that episode first ran on NBC, I thought it was a good, not great,
> episode. I'll say this much for the recent string of mediocre first-run
> shows - they sure make you appreciate the older episodes more. Seeing
> "Grief" again, I was struck by how well-crafted the plot was. The
> teleplay is credited to a Suzanne Oshry - even though she's apparently
> not one of the regular L&O writers, she turned in one terrific script.
> One of my favorite moments is when Jack McCoy confronts the legal
> dilemma he faces by telling Adam Schiff, "There's no damn solution,
> Adam." But McCoy comes up with a solution, of sorts - no dopey deus ex
> machina riding to the rescue here.
"Grief" was in my opinion one of the best episodes of the entire
series, and defenitely one of the most compelling. I still say
"Sweeps" (the season four opener in 1993-'94 that was the debut for
Van Buren and Claire) was the best episode of the entire series, as
that episode served as a warning for the producers of the then-popular
tabloid TV talk shows that something like what happened two years
later on "Jenny Jones" could if they were not careful.
> I can still watch L&O reruns from earlier seasons and marvel at the
> finely woven detail of both the police investigation and resulting
> prosecution. Now the show just goes through the motions. It's so sad -
> one of my favorite TV shows has "jumped the shark."
The problem was, many of those "finely woven episodes" didn't do that
well in the ratings. For example, on A & E Thursday 12/13 as the
"early" episode was "The Torrents of Greed" (with part two set for
Friday 12/14 in the 1:00/7:00 PM slot), which was clearly the best
story of the first season as well as in the opinion of some (not me)
the best episode of the series. Thast episode probably did OK, but
didn't draw even close to the ratings that "L & O" gets now on NBC.
The real problem is, while you and I may like the older episodes, many
who only picked up on "L & O" in recent years are probably more casual
viewers of TV who like their shows neatly packaged as "L & O" seems to
at times now (and "L & O" is now in the top five). Even if the writing
as some suggest is substandard to earlier episodes, it still is far
better than 99% of what is seen on TV these days).
Walt
Brett A. Pasternack
>
> >Eugene Kim gen...@concentric.net wrote:
>
> >
> >Is everyone here familiar with the Web site jumpingtheshark.com? It's a
> >very funny site that encourages
>
> Unfortunately, yes. A nice idea that has been overused, to the point where a
> show that makes a single error "jumps the shark." If L&O began today, and one
> of the bad S1 episodes had aired, people would say the show had "jumped the
> shark."
It's absurd that the website starts soliciting votes about series within
weeks of their premieres.
Getteur
>> Unfortunately, yes. A nice idea that has been overused, to the point where
>a
>> show that makes a single error "jumps the shark." If L&O began today, and
>one
>> of the bad S1 episodes had aired, people would say the show had "jumped the
>> shark."
>
>It's absurd that the website starts soliciting votes about series within
>weeks of their premieres.
Agreed. IMPO there is no single episode or cast situation that can be pointed
to as that "jumped the shark" point or episode.
Granted the show may not be up to the consistent entertaining quality of its
earlier years, but that can be attributed to a number of things.
For one, it is a general fact of life that no show in history has been able to
keep coming up with those great fresh ideas week after week. Writer's get in a
rut from writing in the same format week after week for year after year.
As for the cast, is has been losing momentum in spots here and there with every
change in the past few years, but. particularly in the area of McCoy's ADAs and
Briscoe's partners. Actually, as much I liked Claire and some of those earlier
ADAs and detectives, if I were to point to any one cast member, as small as the
role is, for me it would be the loss Adam Schiff.
Gary
Eugene Kim
> Granted the show may not be up to the consistent entertaining quality of its
> earlier years, but that can be attributed to a number of things.
> For one, it is a general fact of life that no show in history has been able to
> keep coming up with those great fresh ideas week after week. Writer's get in a
> rut from writing in the same format week after week for year after year.
I don't disagree, but I can think of two classic hour-long TV shows which I think
managed to maintain a high level of writing up to the end (that is to say, I
wanted to keep watching to the end): the original "Perry Mason" starring Raymond
Burr and the original "Mission: Impossible."
"Perry Mason" lasted nine seasons (and, in the early years, did 39 episodes in one
season!), but in its last year, showed signs of tiredness. For one thing, some of
the shows were blatant remakes, if not ripoffs, of early episodes. For all of
that, the shows they produced remained true to the spirit of "Perry Mason," and
did not display a general falling-off in quality, although they were wise to hang
it up when they did.
"Mission: Impossible," which may have had the most restrictive format of all, also
ended up having to resort to recycling premises in its final seasons, but again,
maintained a certain high level of quality.
I frankly feel that L&O hasn't done this. Much has been written about the decline
of the show. I offer this thought: at its best, a typical episode of L&O would
have enough plot in it for two or three episodes crammed into an hour; nowadays,
they seem lucky to fill just the hour.