When it comes to the subject of shark jumping you really can not blame the actors, the writers and the producers. There are, after all, in the business of making money and if there is an audience out there that wants to watch a program no matter how horrible it gets then the show will painfully trudge along. Programs such as MASH, ALL IN THE FAMILY and the most egregious of all THE FACTS OF LIFE all had numerous horrific seasons that audiences still tuned in to watch. In fact, ALL IN THE FAMILY managed to become so rotten that it had to change it's name to ARCHIE BUNKER'S PLACE since the original audience departed and the focus of the program changed Archie from a blue collar anti-hero to a stereotypical sitcom curmudgeon. And, boy, did that show descend into the truly awful when this occurred. However, audience viewing patterns change hard and this is why some of these shows last as long as they did. Plus, the programming on the other channels were WORSE!