Watch Tom Hiddleston Sing Like Hank Williams for the First Time in Public

This Sunday, HBO’s series Boardwalk Empire returns for the last time. After three seasons spent in the roaring 20s, the fourth and final one jumps an astonishing seven years forward in time to bring us to 1931. The change is somewhat alarming: some regular characters won’t even be around this season. But it’s also only one of many time jumps we’ve seen on television this year. In fact, the time jump has become so prevalent it’s become a bona-fide TV trend. From cheery sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother and Parks and Recreation to dreary crime dramas like True DetectiveFargo, time, as the song says, keeps on slipping into the future. And while the time-jump gimmick is sometimes just that—a gimmick—it can be deployed deftly and artistically. Here’s a look at the various reasons the time jump has been deployed in recent TV history. What’s clear is that even though it works very well sometimes, like any TV trend, the time jump is in danger of wearing out its welcome.