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Post by mistrali on Oct 22, 2013 2:59:53 GMT -5
I never read the books in order, but I'd say it started to become formulaic around #20. Yes, there were occasional good ones after that, but the originals had heart that, for the most part, some of the later ones lacked. The attempt to bring in scandals wasn't exactly the same.
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Amalia
Sitting For The Braddocks
Her Original Point of View
Posts: 3,664
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Post by Amalia on Oct 30, 2013 19:25:09 GMT -5
^ Man, number 20 was my juncture too.
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Post by virgoscorpio on Oct 31, 2013 0:05:48 GMT -5
Maybe after Ann stopped writing them personally? That might be an easy answer though.
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Amalia
Sitting For The Braddocks
Her Original Point of View
Posts: 3,664
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Post by Amalia on Oct 31, 2013 8:51:05 GMT -5
^ I could see that. I checked on wikipedia and it said that the last one was # 35 which was Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook, which was about a supposed haunted house that got bulldozed. Mr. Hennessey said that he was just joking about seeing ghosts there but I'm not so sure. I think it provided an out for Ann to use if she ever needed to answer adolescent fans if they ever pointed out an inconsistency or a mistake that ghostwriters might've made: just throw out that Stoneybrook might've been cursed because they bulldozed something that might've belonged to the undead that didn't want that to happen and blame the ghostwriters' error on the curse?
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Post by virgoscorpio on Oct 31, 2013 14:21:06 GMT -5
She wrote some random ones in the series, like Stacey's Choice - for example - which, funny enough, I enjoyed more than some of the others around that time.
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Post by Kylie90210 on Nov 13, 2013 20:47:23 GMT -5
I have to say, Claudia going back to seventh grade, and then back to eighth grade in such a 'short' time span kind of annoyed me.
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Post by zoar3 on Nov 13, 2013 20:59:12 GMT -5
^It annoyed me, too, Kylie. I can understand that the majority of why Claudia wanted to return to 8th grade was when she realized if she had chosen to stay in 7th grade that would mean a year at SMS without her BSC friends (who technically would have graduated). I have said before that IMO Kristy holds the other BSC members and the kids they sit for closer to her heart than the other girls. That is definitely a reason why Kristy is my favorite sitter. With Claudia, I think she also appreciates having the BSC both as friends and an outlet to feel good about being apart of. Maybe she felt that might also be threatened had she stayed in 7th grade. In any case, I wish that had been stated. And I do think the returning to 7th grade for less than a few months (in "real" time) was crazy. It still, to me, would have made much more sense had Claudia repeated 7th grade initially instead of moving up to 8th grade. That could have made for a fascinating BSC beginning.
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msstock87
Sitting For The Braddocks
Here Comes The Bride!
Created by Rie.
Posts: 3,618
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Post by msstock87 on Nov 17, 2013 19:52:17 GMT -5
I didn't really like Claudia going back to seventh grade either. To me, if they were going to do that, I wish they would have done it a lot earlier in the series.
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mallorypike
Sitting For The Papadakis's
If I were thirteen instead of eleven, life would be a picnic...
Posts: 1,636
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Post by mallorypike on Jan 22, 2016 4:15:55 GMT -5
I agree that there isn't an exact number when the BSC jumped the shark. There ARE high quality later books and low quality earlier books. Like I heard The All New Mallory Pike and the one about child abuse were good, and I thought Kristy's Worst Idea was good too. Jessi Ramsey, Pet Sitter, Jessi and the Super Brat, and Dawn and the Older Boy sucked. The BSC went from high quality to low quality to high quality. I'll say it's the middle part that sucked (40s-70s?).
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Post by sparklymouse on Jan 22, 2016 11:43:41 GMT -5
By the actual meaning of jump the shark I'd say Island Adventure or California Girls.
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mallorypike
Sitting For The Papadakis's
If I were thirteen instead of eleven, life would be a picnic...
Posts: 1,636
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Post by mallorypike on Jan 22, 2016 13:11:29 GMT -5
^ I liked Island Adventure and California Girls! Although they were not that good
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Post by sparklymouse on Jan 22, 2016 14:48:37 GMT -5
^So did I, but that's not what I understand "jumping the shark" to be. I thought it was supposed to be specific moments or plot lines that are often over the top/unbelievable or unnecessary to try to gain interest (Fonzie jet skiing over a shark). So, for me, first BSC jump the shark moments were getting stuck on an island or winning the lotto.
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mallorypike
Sitting For The Papadakis's
If I were thirteen instead of eleven, life would be a picnic...
Posts: 1,636
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Post by mallorypike on Jan 22, 2016 15:27:15 GMT -5
^ Oh, yeah, that's right there were WTF moments in the BSC I still loved anyway.
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Enigma
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 128
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Post by Enigma on Jan 24, 2016 0:18:59 GMT -5
I'd say there was a slump in the 60s to 90s (when Dawn moved back to California) but it picked up again after "Kristy's Worst Idea" and the FF series. Don't get me wrong, the series got more outlandish easily after the first few books but that doesn't mean the same thing as total decline.
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andrew
Sitter-In-Training
Posts: 353
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Post by andrew on Jun 29, 2016 8:26:54 GMT -5
There were some very good books later but I think a bit of a turning point was either in #34 (it suddenly, briefly being summer vacation and Stacey pretty over-the-top) or 48 (the sitters going into volunteering right after Mallory struggled with if she should cut back in the previous book) or 51 (Laine suddenly being way-out of character and Stacey not making much effort to understand her), after the latter two the characterizations of the sitters in general, especially Kristy and Dawn, tended to be both overdone and inconsistent.
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