“How I Met Your Mother” has officially jumped the shark
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008Well, it’s official. I’m surprised it lasted this long — usually the comedies that appeal to me tend to be short-lived; or, at least, sentimental looks back tend to make it seem that way (except for “Cheers,” man, did that show drag ass). But finally, one of my current favorites, “How I Met Your Mother” appears to have taken a turn for the worse.
I won’t discuss it directly so as not to introduce any spoilers for you TiVo users, but if the show continues with the plot line from the end of last night’s episode, I’m going to have difficulty watching it.
Oh, and in case you’re not familiar with the phrase, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia’s surprisingly accurate explanation:
The term jumping the shark alludes to a specific scene in a 1977 episode of the TV series Happy Days when the popular character Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli literally jumps over a shark while water skiing. The scene was so preposterous that many believed it to be an ill-conceived attempt at reviving the declining ratings of the flagging show. The phrase has become a colloquialism used by U.S. TV critics and fans to denote the point at which the characters or plot of a TV series veer into a ridiculous, out-of-the-ordinary storyline.
It’s not my favorite phrase, but it works.