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The Holiday Link To TV Show Decline

“There’s no cure like travel to help you unravel the worries of living today” as Cole Porter once penned, not yesterday. But when a television show packs its parasol and heads for the metaphorical beach, why is it that so many end up launching themselves into a period of steep decline? You only have to look at the term ‘jumping the shark’ to realise the link between holidays and the inevitability of decline for a TV show. Anyone up on their trivia will know that the term is in tribute to the ‘Hollywood’ three-parter of Happy Days. The lights of LA have called to the Happy Days cast, and the Fonz is challenged by a local hero, “The California Kid” to literally ski-jump over a great white shark. And well… he does. That’s it.

The show may have subsequently clung on for six more seasons, but this one episode made it clear that all creative energy had been depleted in the writer’s room. Shark jumpers are often survivors: ‘clinging on’ is just something they do.. A classic shark jumping episode comes from Friends, when the cast are on Barbados Holidays , viewers were treated to a confused Rachel breaking character and kissing long-time irrelevance Joey. The Simpsons is another popular example. One common opinion is that ‘the Principal and the Pauper’ was one long shark jump (Principal Skinner isn’t really Principal Skinner). But aside from my opinion that this episode isn’t actually all that bad, the ninth season contains enough great moments to make it seem more of a mis-step than a fullblown descent into mediocrity.

For me, the format stretched itself too far with ‘Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo’, when the Simpsons go to Japan ignoring Homer’s preference for Caribbean holidays, with little reasoning (or interest) imbued in the plotting. The show’s daft portrayal of Japanese culture (seizure robots and paper-walled prisons) is offensive only to the viewer.

The problem with such shows is therefore their gimmicky nature. Even in animation, a ‘trip’ to another locale is just an excuse to expend resources on making flashy scenes at the expense of lavishing care and attention on the script. Anyone considering a holiday episode for even the most successful of series’ would be best advised to reconsider: you may never be able to regain your credibility.

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