Everybody knows that the colloquialism for that moment in which a sitcom goes from great to suddenly absurd and maybe unwatchable is that it has "jumped the shark," a lá when the Fonz skied over a buncha sharks on Happy Days.
But it can be argued that there were plenty of great moments left in Happy Days, and that even more significant "Jump the Shark" moments later occurred (Richie leaving, for example.)
BUT it CANNOT be argued that Roseanne went completely off the rails the second the Conners won the lottery. They went years and years weaving in characters so slowly that they were even able to pull a Dick York/Dick Sargent and then back again with Becky and nobody noticed or really cared. But the SECOND they won the lottery, there was not a watchable moment on the show. Fonzie jumping the shark might've started a slow decline, but the Conners winning the lottery dropped Roseanne INTO the shark tank during feeding frenzy time. So isn't it about time THAT became the vernacular? In other words, has the phrase "jumped the shark" won the lottery?
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