Shark Bytes

Watched the show originally (and still do, when I catch a rerun on cable) mainly to see Hugh O'Connor who was H-O-T. I also thought he was a pretty decent actor. A damn shame that his life ended up so terribly. RIP Hugh.

didnt care for show just liked bubba skinner and lonnie jameson thought they were hot

I still enjoy this show as a time killer if nothing else is on or I have nothing planned. One thing that always struck me as odd though, was the ranks of everyone of the Sparta PD.

There were a lot of chiefs and not very many Indians.

Everyone seemed to have the rank of Sargeant or above.

Exit Stage Left - Lois Nettleton (JoAnn) and Joe Don Baker (Dugan). Both of these characters made a great impact on the show. Dugan was only on for a few episodes, but they were among the best of the series. The Pig Woman episode was great, as was the episode where he is gunned down in the woods. When the show came back the next season, it was never the same.

Archie Bunker as a sheriff in the south...wow what a stretch...Still, this show did quite well up against Roseanne on ABC.....

I think it would be a toss up on whether someones life expectancy would be better in Sparta or in Cabot Cove.

Can you imagine the pressure and fear living in either place. The murder rate made New York City seems like EPCOT

I didn't watch this show much because Carroll O'Connor was such a joke--a far cry from All in the Family. No, it was Bubba's nice rear end. I wanted to take a fraternity paddle and initiate Bubba into something...

The show JTS with the so-called relationship between Gillespie and Delong. It was completely contrived and appeared to be little more than the character Gillepie dating a black woman just for the sake of upsetting the local rednecks and the town council. Also are the shows about rich white people from well-to-do families plotting to kill each other over some family secret, love triangle or inheritance.
The least offensive episodes are the ones dwelling on controversial issues: e.g rape, incest, pedophilia, drunk driving, hate crimes, etc. At least they meant well.
The main problem is that the plots are so precictable. Most episodes show who did it in the first 5 minutes while we wait an entire hour for the police to figure it out.
The characters are a rednecked version of Mayberry RFD with real criminals. O'Connors' Gillespie is a grandfatherly old coot who acts like he would like to spank everyone and put them to bed without any supper rather than arrest anyone; Rod Stieger's Gillespie who is angry and intense. Howard Rollins as Tibbs is softspoken, henpecked and wimpy compared to Sidney Poiter who was sharp, intense and always one step ahead of everyone. No matter what happens in Sparta the police solve it with that same sort of non - chalant attitude. There is never a moment where Tibbs or Gillespie explode unlike the movie where Rod Stieger yells at everyone to get their attention. The more emaotinal moments usually involve those episodes where one charctere is supposed to be the maincharacter of that episode and whatever yelling that happens sounds contrived like a soap opera.
This is not to say it isn't entertaining for the very same reasons just that it doesn't stack up real well against the movie from which it evolved.

I don't think Delong & Gillespie was the exact moment the show jumped the shark, but it definitely wasn't a good thing. There was absolutely no spark between those two and it wasn't because Gillespie couldn't be paired up. His relationship with the woman from the cafe really worked and I was sorry to see that character go. If they wanted a shocking interracial relationship, they should have hooked Althea up with someone. Anne Marie left because Rollins getting kicked off the show killed her screentime. They split the couple up anyway, why didn't they just split them up and have her run off to someone else. They'd already hinted that she and Bubba were too close for comfort. If they wanted shocking, that would have done it!

Carroll O'Connor had the worst fake southern accent ever. Seriously, I've heard better in a highschool drama production of "Streetcar Named Desire."

The Delong-Gillespie romance was the shark jumping point.

I have always thought that Anne-Marie Johnson does the same thing to tv shows that Ted McGinty does: she kills them dead. She's talented, no question about it... but I think this is one of the longer-living of the tv shows that she has appeared on (don't hold me to that). But What's Happening Now... Hill Street Blues... In Living Color... Melrose Place... JAG... I'm sure there's others. Her IMDB page is like a graveyard for tv shows. That said, whatever hex she puts on tv shows is not what killed this one, it probably had more to do with the hokey relationship between O'Connor and DeLong, or certainly when Det. Tibbs left the show.

I'd have to say when when Carrol O'Connor became sheriff and Carl Weathers chief of police ... but to be honest, there are several cases where this otherwise very good show jumped the shark

I don't think this show ever really jumped the shark. Yes, the episodes after Howard Rollins left and Gillespie became Sheriff weren't as good as the others but I still liked it. This show was great. I admit it was a little corny at times, but I loved it and Bubba was great! Every show doesn't have to make sense and do things "by the book", that's what makes it tv. It's not real. So what if the crimes were solved by Althea? It's a tv show not real life.

This show is just sorry! Althea made the show jump. She was a bitch and thought she knew everything. And how did she have time to stay home and take care of twin babies, be a teacher, a principal some other kind of school administrator AND help the police force solve the crimes that THEY were supposed to solving themselves? A town full of hillbillies and about 2 or 3 crimes on one episode is just plain sad. And what's up with Harriet DeLong and Bill Gillespie's marriage or whatever you want to call it? That whole stupid scenario just made the jump as well. Enough of my rambling, lol!