Shark Jumping At NBC

Ken O’Brien

For those unfamiliar with the term “jump the shark”, I will pull a Rand Paul and quote from Wikipedia (oops! I cited the source):

Jumping the shark is an idiom created by Jon Hein that was used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery, which is usually 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. Its name is taken from a scene from a fifth season episode of the sit-com Happy Days when the character Fonzie jumps over a shark on water-skis.

In its initial usage, it referred to the point in a television program's history when the program had outlived its freshness and viewers had begun to feel that the show's writers were out of new ideas, often after great effort was made to revive interest in the show by the writers, producers, or network.^[1][2][3]

The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment when a brand, design, or creative effort's evolution loses the essential qualities that initially defined its success and declines, ultimately, into irrelevance.

Upcoming in December two outlets of the Comcast subsidiary NBC Universal are offering musical extravaganzas. One, appearing on December 5 on the NBC network, is a live broadcast production of The Sound Of Music starring Carrie Underwood.

The other, appearing on the USA Network on December 15 is Psych The Musical.

Christopher Plummer, who starred as Captain Von Trapp in the classic big screen production, frequently referred to the film as The Sound Of Mucous. I must confess that reflects my feelings about this saccharin summary of dealing with the Nazi atrocities.

But more offensive to me is the oh-so-cynical belief that Carrie Underwood’s red-state, country music wholesomeness can be transliterated into crossover media superstardom on the back of a Julie Andrews template.

My beef is not with Ms. Underwood. Rather, it is with the cultural manipulation to which we have willingly become victims. It is the kind of manipulation that has made social curiosities such as the Kardashians, Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus cultural icons. We fail to realize that they are the equivalent of the Elephant Man in our era. Sadly, however, today’s youth seek to emulate these freaks. And we shower wealth upon those who create them.

The other victims, however, are the talented people who are exploited by these managerial charlatans. This is what may have befallen Carrie Underwood. Inside her celebrity bubble I fear that she has fallen victim to self-serving opportunists bearing water skis. The result, I suspect, will be her becoming an object of ridicule which it will take years, if ever, from which for her career to recover. The Julie Andrews template that is being replicated is not The Sound Of Music. It is the gratuitous bosom bearing exploitation of the Blake Edwards film S.O.B.

I am much more of an open mind as regards Psych The Musical.

As a devoted fan of this program I have found that it has an amazingly astute awareness of its audience. It manages to maintain a tongue-in-cheek awareness of its self-referential humor while remaining entertaining without stooping to pretension. 

It is in that context that I withhold judgment on the claim that the upcoming episode is in response to overwhelming viewer demand. The tongue in cheek nature of that claim is reflected in the satirical promotional blurbs “quoted” in the network commercials (below).  I hope that it, unlike Carrie Underwood’s career, is not “jumping the shark”.