Shark Bytes

I can understand how you can say the third season (involving the Goliath Chronicles) jumped the shark, but it was really Disney trying to be more kids friendly and not agreeing with Weisman, that led to the worsening stories, and eventual cancellation...the brillane of the two first seasons, assures that it never JTS, particularly Avalon which had a fascinating take on Shakespeare and mythology, and the world tour, which was a unique opportunity to examine the diversity of some of the worlds' legends.

A few others have said this, but I have to say that it really did jump twice. The "World Tour" episodes, and then again with the third season.

I think they dragged the WT arc out way, way too long. We only got to see brief glimpses of characters besides Goliath, Angela, Elisa, and Bronx, and because of this, things started to get very stale IMO. "Hm...where has Avalon sent us this time...oh look, big rocks! That must mean we're in blah blah blah, and we're clearly needed for something!" By the 5th or 6th episode, this became very old.

Then of course, very few fans liked the third season for many reasons, chief among them the lame villain. It was watchable, but paled in comparison to S1 +2.

As noted many times, the third season was the beginning of the end. Among numerous problems with the third season, my major beef was with John Castaway, his Quarrymen and their hate for the gargoyles. (The hate was poorly defined by the writers and seemed to be a plot device with no logic behind it.) Castaway was an unworthy nemesis and could not hold my fascination anywhere close to the level that others had previously (Xanatos, Demona, Fang, etc). If the writers absolutely had to cover this hate theme, it should have occupied only one or two episodes and not have been an integral plot element.

I think, this was the best disney show ever. I especially likes the "not so evil"-Villian. The stories where full of action but very intelligent and sometimes nearly philosophical. The episodes where perfect interconnected without making the whole thing a neverending soap. Some episodes where a little bit over the top, but overall they managed to came back on track.

It was definitely the third season when the series "jumped the shark," for reasons others have stated. I have to admit, I'm not particularly fond of the "world tour" episodes, but that's mostly because I miss the other characters, not because they were bad. Episodes after Goliath et al return are pretty good (especially "Hunter's Moon).

Gargoyles was probably the best children's show Disney did; it was very mature and addressed a wide variety of interesting issues. The characters were three dimensional, far from perfect, and reasonably deep. There was lots of characterization. Xanatos was by far the most awesome villian ever - I don't think anyone has ever done an amoral machievallian genius better, and he was always a good character to see.

I think the show sort of "jumped the shark" twice. The first time was the World Tour - while it was good to get a break from defending the city over and over again, the World Tour excluded a lot of characters and lasted a very long time. While it didn't stray from the general premise of the show, it felt like a major diversion and wasn't particularly welcome for me. It wasn't horrible, but many of my least favorite pre-third season episodes are from that section of the show.

The second time was the third season. Once Goliath had returned to New York things got a lot better, and the show picked up again and had the very solid Gathering and Hunter's Moon. However, the third season was quite bad.

I wish I could say it never jumped. Truly, I do, as this show is one of my most dearest, treasured shows....But alas, the "thailog" incident cannot be ignored. A cheesy move stole from the Superman playbook (remember Bizarro??)...Whatta RIPOFF!! Even still, I believe the moment when the show "officially" jumped was the Goliath Chronicles. The way they handled it's characters and THE ARTWORK!!! *cringe* The eyes, nose and mouth shift around the characters faces SO much you'd think they were melting! The scenery, even the overall look and landscape of the show lacked the depth, richness and detail it once had (that animation of paper clippings and OLD animation clips in the opening of each ep REEKED low-budget). Not to mention the storyline. Once important characters, MacBeth and Demona have been reduced to stepping out of the shadows every so often. I appreciated the Beauty & the Beast thing Goliath and Elisa had (I remember them making a subtle reference to that in the Halloween episode.) But after the end of Hunter's moon, it was dropped completely, and the characters basically go on as if the kiss never happened...almost FORMAL to each other, even. (Even in the dream Goliath had about being married to her there was a lot left to be desired)....I guess you could only take things like that SO FAR with a timeslot like that. I don't see how the rest of you didn't like the narration Goliath made in the beginning of each episode. Deep thinkers talk at a minimum, so I'll take any opportunity to "hear his thoughts". But it was real evident from moment one that there was a massive change in the art AND writing depts. for this show...Tragically, a change for the worse. The final fatal mistake, moving it to ABC Saturday morning!! Hell is the only other place that would schedule a show LIKE THIS to air between RECESS and POWER RANGERS!! This show is too deep (or at least it was intended to be) for FrootLoop and booger eating little kids!!!

I loved Gargoyles. I didn't even know Disney could do animation for a somewhat older audience until I saw this. But I really don't think it should've lasted as long as it did. I mean, with the finale to season 3 (?) pretty much everything that had originally driven the show and made it cool had been stripped away. Our heroes weren't the only gargoyles in the world; there were gargoyles in like every city in the world. Xanatos and the gargoyles were friends, and the mystic creatures of the world would be leaving them alone from now on. And biggest of all, Goliath and Eliza were an item. How were they supposed to produce the same level of quality they'd been doing with all of that established? They'd boxed themselves completely in. How were they supposed to produce any kind of quality at all? I would've just let Gargoyles go peacefully into reruns after that. But I guess that shows why I don't work for Disney. To conclude, I kinda have to echo the anti-Oberon sentiment. I mean he's apparently the most powerful dude in the universe, but excuse me, he's the king of the fairies, and he's more powerful than Odin, the king of the GODS??? No. But really, there shouldn't have been anything after all that in the third season (or whatever one it was that culminated with Oberon trying to steal Xanatos' kid).

After the 3-part episode "Avalon," the show stopped being about the clan in Manhattan and became about the magical canoe ride around the world. Utter lameness. Then the writers came to their senses and put the show back in Manhattan, and everything was right with the universe.

The show jumped when they started the whole King Arthur and Shakespeare themes. Fantasy can be fun kiddies, but the best fantasy is rooted in reality. When fantasy overtakes reality the story becomes a lackluster character role call. (ie. when they started introducing so many magical creatures into the modern world that the modern world ceased to exist.) The story was great...at first. Then as the seasons continued it became a sort of role call style story telling. "Hey guys what famous mythical creature can we show in this episode?"..."I know how about Griffon who lives in England but speaks with an Australian accent!"..."SURE thing! Give THAT guy a raise!" If they would have kept it as Gargoyles in a strange modern world, it would have stayed great.

I'm tempted to make a counter-rant in response to that IDIOT who went on and on, and even had the gall to compare that trash, Dragonball Z, to Gargoyles. At least with Gargoyles, even in the Goliath Chronicles, there were decent characters and not everybody was some buff, if-I-get-beaten-I'll-just-get-even-stronger-hahaha, spiky-haired MORON. I also agree that the show obviously wasn't originally intended to continue past season two, or if it was, it hadn't been completely set in stone (no pun intended) at the time. Xanatos' alliance with the clan was not forced in the slightest; he repayed his debts and in doing so ensured the assistance of a strong group in the future. Not only that, but by doing so he eliminated the chance of them antagonizing him again.

Gargoyles was on the money until the birth of The Goliath Chronicles and the switch to ABC. Before that, yes we had slightly inconsistent epis sometime, but even the travels of Goliath, Eliza, Bronx and (eventually) Angela on the boat was somewhat interesting. And "The Calling" was totally kick ass. But with the end of that season we lost many things that were integral to the intrigue of the show - the somewhat antagonistic relationship between Xanatos and the clan, the belief of the clan that they were alone, and the tension between Eliza and Goliath. Fine, I thought to myself, lets see how the writers rise to this challenge. Let's see how they keep the show fresh from now on. Then we were presented with a show with piss-poor animation, continuity inconsistencies, and lots of deus ex machina endings where Xanatos saves the day. And that finale? WORST. EPISODES. EVER. Ugh. Tainting the memory of a show that I used to love. Long live Keith David, but let us never speak of The Goliath Chronicles.

Gargoyles has got to be one of the best shows Disney has made. I don't think it ever really jumped, but the whole world travel thing where it turns out there are actually like a thousand gargoyles in the world in about every country really took something from the show. Also, season 3 seemed a lot less structured than 1 and 2, with rarely ever to be continued style episodes. Btw, gargoyles is on around six or seven CST on Toon Disney.

Gargoyles jumped the shark when they moved it to ABC and became the Goliath Chronicles. The script writing was just wasn't the same and the episodes didn't seem to connect together like they used to. It just became another Disney show like to others.

The "Round-the-World Cruise" sequence completely bunged up the series' already gnarled continuity. I enjoyed the series until then but was gradually turned off as the series played more and more to a smaller and smaller audience of detail-obsessed fans.