10 top shows that jumped the shark (and when they did it)

True Blood: Vampire Bill is reborn as Lilith

I don’t think there are many True Blood fans that can’t put their finger on a moment when the show didn’t tip over into silliness. For everything else that show did well, that was kind of it’s strong suit. However, once the Alan Ball series strayed from the Charlaine Harris books, things got weird, and not in the way fans like. One of the strangest things to come from those later seasons is Bill’s conversion to Lilithism, and his subsequent rebirth as the spirit.

I’ll admit, I am a giant fan of the franchise. I accepted a lot from this show. From Sookie’s Faerie status to her resistance to a relationship with Alcide, I suspended my disbelief. It’s hard to imagine a universe, real or imagined, in which someone wouldn’t throw themselves at Joe Manganiello.

That being acknowledged, True Blood went too far when they asked fans to accept the stoic, timeless vampire Bill as a cult leader and religious zealot. That stretch of episodes came at the end of season 6, and fans were already growing tired of Sookie’s romantic indecision. Perhaps in an attempt to make Bill seem less attractive (and less like a viable choice for her partner) they forced him into some ancient religion with a a woman who was decidedly not as awesome as Sookie.

The ideology was far-fetched, but so were the special effects. The blood in the scene looked like a child could have made it with Karo syrup, and reflected the deep budget cuts the series suffered in the final episodes. This show did a lot of hard work on many levels — political allegory, sexy love story, fantasy escapism — that it’s a shame it didn’t get the respect it deserved in those final moments.