Has Dancing with the Stars Jumped the Shark?
After almost every elimination, I get someone sending a message on the Pure DWTS contact form about how they’re never going to watch DWTS again. Many think that we’re the producers of DWTS, which I can assure you were are not! Most of these messages are easily ignored since it’s natural that fans of certain stars and pros are angry that they’ve been sent home. In most cases, those people end up coming back and watching DWTS again.
This season those messages have come at a much bigger rate than ever before. Most of the messages have revolved around Bristol Palin on the show (and sticking around) and the departure of Sabrina (which many thought was too early). The sheer volume has me wondering about the impact these events have had on DWTS. However, more disturbing has been the content of the messages. Usually you can just see the underlying anger about a specific incident. The messages this season have focused more on the show in general.
Certainly the ratings are down this season, but that could be caused by a ton of different X factors and Voices. However, I’ll be interested to see if this is a trend that continues in future seasons (yes, the ratings are still far from the show being cancelled).
With all of this in mind, I ask the question, has Dancing with the Stars “Jumped the Shark”? You can vote in the widget below (Click on Yes or No to vote):
For those not familiar with the term Jump the Shark, here’s the wikipedia description:
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.
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.
I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the poll and your thoughts in the comments.