Do you think Barney Miller jumped the shark after Jack Soo passed away? (ie. after Season 5?)

Nope. Obviously they did lose something special when they lost Jack. However I think by acknowleging his death with the retrospective episode it helped fans accept the change. I don't know if that would have been the case if they never mentioned it.

Never jumped the shark...I thought the show was a little shaky to start, but it got progressively better with each episode to the end.

I'm sure Monika (catlover79) thinks this show jumped the shark when Gregory Sierra left!!

When Jack Soo passed away, the show lost some heart and humor.

However the rest of the cast (along with the writers) carried on and did a very good job every week.

So many of the later episodes were gems.

Do you think Barney Miller jumped the shark after Jack Soo passed away? (ie. after Season 5?)

I don't think so either. Jack Soo was a very funny comedian and Nick was a terrific character, and he was missed, to be sure. But I don't think the overall quality of the show suffered. After Soo passed away, they never had a character who could do the deadpan humor the way Nick could, but they still had very strong comedy with the others.

If they show ever came close to a shark jump, it might have been when they made Levitt a detective. His character was funnier when was trying hard to become a detective, but much of the humor left his character when he was promoted.