The Bob Newhart Show - Bob Newhart even actively prevented the writers from adding a baby to the series.
From Wiki:
The phrase jump the shark comes from a scene in the fifth season premiere episode of the American TV series Happy Days titled “Hollywood: Part 3”, written by Fred Fox, Jr.[4] and aired on September 20, 1977. In the episode, the central characters visit Los Angeles, where a water-skiing Fonzie (Henry Winkler), answers a challenge to his bravery by wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket, and jumping over a confined shark.
Lawyered!
Whooshed!
Your opinion is noted and given all of the consideration it so richly deserves.
Damn! :smack: Game, Set, Match! Well played, sir…
Grew the Beard, IOW.
I would have quit watching (by the above point) if they had NOT resolved the Daphne/Niles thing satisfactorily, instead of continually toying with the relationship, almost coming clean with it all on several occasions (worst one: when Daphne thought Niles was talking about someone else, and not her, when she eavesdropped on one of his phone conversations-or something, and he all-too-obligingly allowed her to continue thinking so). I guess that would have been an inverse-shark-jumping-by-reasons-of-stagnation-and-disrespecting-your-audience.
did Twin Peaks, The Prisoner or The X-Files jump the shark?
one could say they didn’t because they were so bizarre to start with that more bizarreness is expected. though done at different times where straight or bizarre might fit.
Lynch does bizarre stuff so that would be very much expected from him.
Well, Dexter jumped, and jumped HARD in season 5, some of the stupidest television ever made. So much so I was extemely disapointed to hear it was renewed. However, I did hear it grew the beard and came back strong in 6.
House was pretty close to jumping when they had to drum up Set of Minions #3, but they saved it and ended well just when I thought they wouldn’t. LOL, kind of like every episode, now that I think of it.
I am going to submit the idea that a BAD series ending, even a hideous ,dissappointing , they fucked us over! one is not the same as jumping the shark. If anything, I’d say a good ending for a good series is the exception, not the rule.
So, with that in mind. I’d also nominate the recent Battle Star Galactica series.
Grew the Beard. Heh. I like that.
Did you just make that up, or is that a legitimate term for a TV show that starts weak and gets better 
If it’s not, we totally need to start using it as such.
I agree that TNG never jumped the shark. In fact, it’s last episode is widely regarded as one of the best, and it’s final few seasons some of the best.
I also don’t think Seinfeld jumped the shark but it was getting close in the last season. I disagree that the final episode was lame; I rather liked it a lot. The tie-in to the pilot at the end was particularly brilliant.
HIMYM has not yet jumped the shark, and it’s been on for many seasons. In fact, in a way, I think it has “grown the beard”, the more recent seasons being even better than the first (though I don’t think it started off weak).
Futurama hasn’t jumped the shark for me, and the newest seasons have had some of my favorite episodes and favorite quotes. They haven’t been consistently great, but then, neither was the older stuff. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.
South Park hasn’t jumped the shark either. In fact, I think this is a very good candidate for a show that grew the beard. The first few seasons were just violent and tried to be as offensive as possible. Then they started being social commentary and it was both hilarious and meaningful.
Grew the beard is a real term. It refers to ST:TNG where Riker grew a beard right around the same time the show improved massively.
“Grew the beard” refers to *TNG *being bad until Jonathan Frakes literally grew a beard, and the show improved greatly.
I think Barney Miller went eight seasons without jumping.
In fact, I even think it grew a beard (or in this case a moustache) in the second season by eliminating the scenes of Barney’s home life.
Agreed - and nice turn of phrase!
My contribution: The Shield! The entire 7 seasons was one long excellently crafted movie. Perfect.
So far Sons of Anarchy is a tremendous distance away from ramps and buoy-cordons.
Season 7 is tolerable (to a point), but Season 6 jumps the shark so hard the shark got brain damage.
Most people say The X-Files jumped after the movie, but I think it lasted until Mulder was kidnapped. Either way, it definitely jumped.
Agree. I think most fans think anything past season 5’s finale is shark territory.
X-Files massively jumped the shark when Duchovny decided he didn’t want to do it anymore.
Stargate SG-1, while one of my favorite shows of all time, suffered the same fate when RDA decided the same thing.
It’s probably got a trope or something: “One or more main actors leave the show and are replaced, show is cancelled soon after.”
Although Stargate made it the furthest after the cast change; it is the longest continually running sci-fi show (Doctor Who technically doesn’t count because there were breaks.)
There should be a term for a great show with a last WTF? episode. *
We used to gather on Saturday nights in a classroom that could project TV for “The Prisoner”, then go out and discuss it to death. Most philosophical give-and-take I’ve been part of (best pithiness-to-lateness ratio yet). But the last two episodes? [opinion redacted]
Same for Lost. The writers promised they wouldn’t come up with magical explanations, but then wrote themselves into too many corners to get out of, and copped out. Ditto for Twin Peaks. Great shows, and with “real” endings would’ve been looked back on fondly.
This is what I came in to say. (Although I would not say it of his second series, Newhart.)
In my opinion, yes to all of them (and I’d include Lost as well). I feel each of these shows reached a point where they were forced to be weird for the sake of being weird rather than because it fit the ongoing story.
The problem, I think, is that each of them had a structure where some characters were trying impose normality. The established rules of story-telling says the protagonist has to make progress in reaching a goal or you lose the audience - but in these stories you have the problem that if the protagonist made progress towards his goal of imposing normality, then you’d lose the weirdness that was the setting of the show. So the shows we’re forced to come up with things like introducing new obstacles or moving the goalposts or revealing hidden layers to keep the weirdness alive while moving the story along. And, in my opinion, none of them were able to do it successfully - in each case, it was an obvious glitch.
In contrast, I feel weirdness can work in a show like The Addams Family or Soap, where the characters embrace the weirdness and there’s no goal of trying to impose normality.