"One Day..." jumped the shark when...

[Babalu]

Any show with growing children has to change. I remember liking the show but the reason I stuck with it was Valerie. As far as I'm concerned I lost interest in the show when Valerie was married and cut her hair. As far as being a quality show, I think they did the best they could with the Mackenzie Philips situation, both script wise and personnel wise. They fired her to try to save her life and they made her a rebel on the show because it made sense. When they thought they needed Glen Scarpelli, they should have folded up the tent.

[RetroTVNitekatt]

Originally Posted by Babalu

Any show with growing children has to change. I remember liking the show but the reason I stuck with it was Valerie. As far as I'm concerned I lost interest in the show when Valerie was married and cut her hair. As far as being a quality show, I think they did the best they could with the Mackenzie Philips situation, both script wise and personnel wise. They fired her to try to save her life and they made her a rebel on the show because it made sense. When they thought they needed Glen Scarpelli, they should have folded up the tent.

I've said it before, Mac killed the show, it just took 4 seasons and two firings to do so, more or less.

Valerie in her first book clearly states there was talk of spinning off the girls into their own show when Mac came back, but the talk eventually died down - clearly the network was worried about what eventually happened - Mac relapsed. You can't tell me the sharing the house idea was not part of a possible spin-off concept.

Bud Wiser, good bless him was producer during the 4 tough years - Seasons 5-8 and kept the show in the top 10/20. (For the record, the show wasn't syndicated till season 8 was on the air as CBS obtained the daytime run rights for several years)

Val and Bonnie's reason for walking away have been talked about to death, but truth is, nothing was stopping CBS from giving both of them spin-offs with producers,writers and directors they wanted to work with. "Archie Bunker's Place" gave the characters of Archie, Barney and Stephanie 4 additional years in addition to some good new supporting characters.

[TMC]

According to the old jump the shark site, the biggest knock on ODAAT was that it was too deep and dramatic. With that being said however, one can argue that the writing quality in the first few seasons was much better than Alice or Three's Company. Eventually though, the show got bogged down with too many bland or annoying characters (i.e. Alex, Max, Mark, Sam, and Katherine). Also, Max and Julie for the most part, had zero chemistry and were in and out (due of course, to Mackenzie Phillips' real life "issues").

[Fallon97]

The show never jumped. I actually prefer the later years.