'Jumping the shark' is an idiom created by Jon Hein that is used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery. The phrase is also used to refer to a particular scene, episode or aspect of a show in which the writers use some type of "gimmick" in a desperate attempt to keep viewers' interest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
We've had a lot of discussion lately about the possibility that TLC's reality show Sister Wives officially has jumped the shark.So let's discuss how you feel about the topic. I'll go first....
The background as to why I watch Sister Wives:
My mother went to high school in a city that was predominately Mormon. When I was young, she told me about an incident that happened when she was in high school. Two girls, who everyone thought were cousins, were found out to actually be half-sisters. Their mothers were sisters, and married to the same man. The family was shunned, and left town shortly thereafter. As a child, I tried to grasp how a man could believe it was OK to marry 2 sisters. Weird, but my curiosity was piqued.
Much later, I watched a reality show called "My Husband's Three Wives". This show was about non religion based polygamy. The husband was horrible, the women were not happy (funny how he 'married' wife #2 while wife #1 was on active duty overseas) and when he decided to bring in wife #3 ( who it turned out had used her own money to prevent foreclosure of the family home as well as money for food and gas for the other wives and their children) the 2 wives had had enough and said NO. The husband then basically patted the devastated 3rd wife candidate on the head, and threw her out of the house. When the show was repeated (on TLC I think) we learned that wife #1 divorced him and remarried. Wife #2 also left, and the would be wife #3 refused any further contact with the man. The man got his doctorate in Psychology, wrote a book and married again, and no longer believes in polygamy. Now THAT show was a train wreck. So of course, when Sister Wives appeared on TLC, I had to watch it.
The most troubling scene for me was:
Right after Robyn gave birth to Solomon. For some unknown reason, Robyn, sitting on a throne-like rocking chair holding a newly born baby Sol, took aim and fired her shot directly at one of her bonus children for 'snubbing' her. According to Robyn, this disrespectful bonus teen refused to acknowledge her position as Kody's wife. He didn't even try to pick up baby Sol. Being that this bonus teen's 'storyline' had been he was not adjusting well to the sudden move to Vegas, it just seemed so cruel to see a supposedly mature adult try to strike down a teenager with such passive-aggressive venom. It got me thinking why would Kody and Janelle allow Robyn's soft-spoken but deadly serious speech against their child? What kind of parent would allow that type of behavior? Yep, apparently the Browns. From Meri's dissing of Christine's youngest to Robyn's dissing of Janelle's son, no wonder Janelle initially said she wasn't going miss sleeping just to see Robyn's baby being born. And though Janelle did show up to see the baby, she made sure Robyn heard her say that Sol looked like all the other Brown kids when they were born. Nothing special about him at all.
Sister Wives jumped the shark:
For me, Sister Wives jumped the shark on the episode when Kody, with way too much breathless enthusiasm, announced that Robyn was pregnant and Mariah ran out of the room crying. Even though Meri tried to explain that Mariah was feeling sad for her infertility, that one scene of Mariah feeling so sad (not to mention the sad faces of the rest of the teens) set up the remaining season, leading up to the episode when Robyn gave birth. Robyn's offer to surrogate for Meri was nothing more than a ploy (most likely the idea of the producers) for a future storyline next season. Will Meri or won't Meri accept Robyn's offer. WHO CARES? The downward spiral begins. And the best the producers could muster up for the next season was 6 weeks of forgettable episodes including the one showing Kody dissing Christine's family tradition for a Jewish one, and Kody unforgivably announcing to the world how so disgusted he was with her eating nachos that he almost didn't marry her. Too bad about Christine's feelings.
From watching Sister Wives, I now know that there is no such thing as 'good' polygamy. It's all bad. Sister Wives has shown the world that love IS divided in a family that practices polygamy, and that cruelty, pain, jealousy and suffering most definitely is multiplied for the women who chose this lifestyle and their children who had no choice.
So let's discuss this. Do you feel Sister Wives has jumped the shark???
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