MovieChat Forums > Family Ties (1982) Discussion > Why do viewers feel that Andrew's birth ...

Why do viewers feel that Andrew's birth was the jump the shark moment?

posted 4 years ago by TMC-4 (20122)
22 replies | jump to latest

I know that Meredith Baxter (Birney) was pregnant in real life and instead of simply strategically hiding her belly, they wrote it in that Elyse was pregnant too. Did viewers think that the Keatons having another kid was unnecessary since they were already, a nearly grown nuclear family? And naturally, they had to make the baby a clone/mini-me of the show's most popular character.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061031125219/http://www.jumptheshark.com/f/familyties.htm

[–] Mynvosa (110) 2 months ago

Adding a pregnancy and subsequent baby to a show is often the kiss of death for any TV series. It’s not necessarily a “jump-the-shark” moment, but it usually indicates that the writers have run out of ideas. The same applies to introducing a major new character into an already established show – it rarely ends well.

Think of all the once-great shows that went downhill after a pregnancy and baby arc:

- Roseanne after Jerry was born.
- Every season of Archer after AJ was born felt like a prolonged decline.
- Friends after Emma was born.
- Bewitched stayed decent after the addition of Tabitha but declined sharply after the birth of Adam.
- Malcolm in the Middle managed to stay good for a while after Jamie was born, but it definitely wasn’t as sharp as the earlier seasons.
- The same thing happened with Frasier after Alice was born.