Name a TV show and when it "Jumped the Shark"...

[deutsey]

58. MASH not long after Frank left in season 6

That's not to say Charles wasn't a good addition to the show. David Ogden Stiers was pretty good in the role, imo.

I think the show was beginning to lose creative steam after Larry Linville left. Stiers was able to step in his boots and even expand the role as Hawkeye's foil into something more interesting than a verbal punching bag, but the show's ideas were really running thin and the writers began doing word-play and puns to the point where the dialogue became unrealistic.

Although I sympathize with the show's overall liberal slant, it also became insufferably preachy after Linville left. He did a brilliant job of creating a snivelling, hypocritical, and deserving target for Hawkeye's ire that when he was gone, Hawkeye just seemed to become a mouthy, self-righteous, know-it-all.

I think if the show had gone off the air no later than season 8, it would've been a good thing.