In which we review a book that was purchased, either new or used, for one American Dollar or less. Can a good read be had on the cheap?

Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad, TV Edition
Plume/Penguin Group, 2003
Trade Paperback, 116 pages
Original Price: $10.00
What I Paid: $1.00

This month in the 100 Penny Review, we turn our attention to Jump the Shark: TV Edition, by Jon Hein, a book that's fraught with peril. First of all, it's a book based on an Internet phenomenon, which are not traditionally huge hits in the publishing world. The other problem is that it didn't age very well: many of the shows that it refers to not only have been cancelled, but have been long forgotten. Never mind the fact that a lot of people aren't going to get any of the Charlotte Rae jokes.

Don't get me wrong, there's still some value here; one of the few things I enjoy more than watching TV is reading about it. I am loathe to waste any opportunity to listen to someone else's critical analysis of the Wayne Rogers syndrome, or suchlike. The behind the scenes feuds, the angst, the dark forces aligning to neuter, censor, and eventually cancel a television project feel sleazy when watched on TV, but can sound almost light-hearted and fun when discussed between the covers of a book.

Not that there's a whole heck of a lot of that here. Jump the Shark tends to just outline the show, pick one or two changes that its fans didn't like, and then cap the whole thing off with unnecessary sidebars. While one shouldn't expect a book like this to have tons of behind-the-scenes information about its subjects, there should have been more substance to each entry. People who are familiar with shows like Moonlighting don't need plot summaries, and the people who aren't won't care enough to read them. They just come off being very dull. The one thing that we, the consumers of media and writers of books about it, can do is to bring some actual criticism to bear. Sure, we don't know what was going on in the offices and dressing-rooms, but we all saw what was happening on the screen, and some of us might have opinions about it, no matter how pointless the show was.

What makes the Jump the Shark website so brilliant is almost completely missing from the book: the discussion. That's the heart and soul of the site, and it's not something that an ink and paper device can reliably deliver. Each listing is an attack, albeit a good natured one, usually, and each comment is an insight in to how we think about the media we consume. Some argue -- quite eloquently, for an Internet forum -- about which particular moments in a show's life made it unwatchable, and some mount spirited defenses on behalf of obvious trash. Each of those positions can be really entertaining. But a book can't convey that aspect of the site; it can only summarize and pronounce, and that's not much fun.

To be fair, this soft cover edition only covers TV. The larger, hard cover version covers lots of topics and, without having read it, I can't say whether or not the weaknesses of the paperback carry over. But, I would suggest borrowing it from the library or a friend before buying it. It may not be worth your dollar.

-S.O