How I Met Your Mother

[freshinthehouse]

No no, the opposite. Friends was a show about nothing that indulged the emotional side of things while milking the Sam and Diane will-they-or-won't-they dynamic, playing musical chairs will every member of the group as partners as a proxy for storyline. The real meat of the show is late-20's early 30-something's who make more money than they should and live in a consequence free world cracking jokes on each other and the nobodies around them. HIMYM is just the next insufferable pap in the evolutionary ladder of sitcoms.

PS: I really, really hated the show the last 2-3 years. It's felt like a money-grab for years

Ah, I gotcha.  That was pretty much Friends in a nutshell.  I can't front too much on it, though, because I watched the hell out of that show when I was 15.  I remember lots of Friends talk in my study hall.  What a bunch of wusses.  Funny we didn't get beat up more.

Never watched HIMYM.  I've worked nights for years, so I am really behind in the times when it comes to primetime TV, and I am usually suspicious of network sitcoms, since so much of it is garbage (though shows like Parks and Rec, The Office, and Modern Family shoot that theory all to hell).

[MBunge]

I started to write a long thing about Hill St Blues (and why it was good, but doesn't hold a candle to shows like The Wire, Sopranos, Deadwood (probably my favorite 'cancelled too early' show outside of MAYBE Firefly and Life starring Homeland's Damien Lewis), Justified, Buffy...

But outside of Sopranos, nobody watched those shows and even ratings for Sopranos were only "great" by HBO standards.  Ratings don't equal quality but a show that a million people love isn't necessarily better than a show that 15 million people like.  Even Buffy's ratings were below cancellation level at any of the four biggest networks.

I'm not saying those shows aren't good but that they practice a kind of non-traditional, niche storytelling that has it's appeal but isn't inherently better than shows aiming at a broader audience.

Mike

[timobusa]

I didn't mind the ending.
It seemed realistic. Like it could happen in real life. Mom dies. Ted re-marries or re-connects with his old "fling".

Dexter was worse.
Ugh. Still disappointed in Dexter.. Wasted 8 years of my life. Should have ended with the John Lithgow season.

[slamtheking]

I started to write a long thing about Hill St Blues (and why it was good, but doesn't hold a candle to shows like The Wire, Sopranos, Deadwood (probably my favorite 'cancelled too early' show outside of MAYBE Firefly and Life starring Homeland's Damien Lewis), Justified, Buffy...man I could go on...and how Mash's early brilliance should overshadow it's later failures, like Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady's earlier primes should be the mark we remember and judge them on, but ultimately I decided to write this, the post explaining about how I walked away from the other post.

And How I Met Your Mother was good early , but it wasn't pantheon good. It wasn't even the level below pantheon good. Compare it to Friends (which is basically what HIMYM was, except HIMYM was more annoying and less transparently about nothing), or Seinfeld (which is what Friends was, but with forced storylines and worse writing).

Psych was a better show than HIMYM. I will deathmatch debate anyone who has seen the entirety of both shows and thinks otherwise. Steelcage.

nice wrap up IP -- TP for you.  actually wish you had Proceeded with those posts -- surely would have been a good read Indeed

[Moranis]

It was an ok show.  Probably dragged on a couple of seasons too long, but I actually liked the last season on the whole (though the final episode was a bit odd and disjointed).  And in a strange turn, I never noticed that Ted's daughter was Alex from Nikita until she spoke at the very end of the last episode. 

[PhoSita]

I don't understand why people were a) surprised / shocked or b) terribly disappointed by the ending of HIMYM.

Nothing that happened in the finale was a surprise if you've been watching the last couple of seasons.  It wasn't meant to be some big twist.

At all times, it was a fun, light-hearted show that occasionally tried to transcend the "mid-20's friend-group sitcom" formula and address issues in a more realistic / mature / emotionally challenging way.  The finale was right in line with that.  I'm satisfied with the way that each of the characters' story arcs was concluded.  I don't have any major misgivings about the way the show concluded.

The one fair criticism that I think can be leveled at the finale, and by extension the entire last season, is that they spend 21 episodes on the wedding weekend (albeit with numerous flash-forwards) and then crammed a TON of stuff into the hour-long finale.


p.s. IP, I'm with you, I loved Psych.  Although if you wanna say HIMYM went on too long, the same is DEFINITELY true of Psych.   I like HIMYM a lot more than Friends, though, but that might just be because I'm a "millennial" and so I appreciate the jokes and the sensibility of HIMYM more.

[StartOrien]

An outsider's perspective -

The finale was the only episode of How I Met Your Mother I ever watched. My girlfriends a fan, I just never got around to it.

I think if your ultimate goal is to send your fan base off with a happy ending that it's a pretty terrible idea to paint the Robin character as pretty much the coldest, meanest person on the planet for 55 minutes and then end it with 'Hey! These two crazy kids are getting together!'

[PhoSita]

An outsider's perspective -

The finale was the only episode of How I Met Your Mother I ever watched. My girlfriends a fan, I just never got around to it.

I think if your ultimate goal is to send your fan base off with a happy ending that it's a pretty terrible idea to paint the Robin character as pretty much the coldest, meanest person on the planet for 55 minutes and then end it with 'Hey! These two crazy kids are getting together!'

Eh, I think you're pretty far off from what they were "painting" Robin as.

I don't think it was really their goal to send off the fan base with a "happy ending," per se, at least not the storybook ending many fans seemed to have wanted.  I think they gave the fans a bittersweet, fairly adult ending.  I appreciate that.


Robin was a career-focused woman who didn't want kids, and then later found out she couldn't have kids even if she wanted to.  She and Ted weren't quite right for each other throughout most of the series, and Robin ended up trying a marriage with Barney, and it didn't work out.  Barney was inspired by Robin to try and change his ways, and he succeeded for a while.  Then their marriage fell apart and he reverted to his old ways, until having a child by accident changed him.  Robin was sad about drifting apart from the group and having her marriage fail, but she poured herself into her work.  Ted got "The Mother" and he had the whole "married with kids" dream life until misfortune cut in and took his wife away from him too soon.  Then, many years later, suddenly it makes sense for Ted and Robin to give it another try.

The show was called "How I Met Your Mother," but as the kids said, the story was really about Robin the whole time.  In telling the story, Ted was in a way convincing himself that it was okay to move on.  Ted was an unreliable narrator for the entire length of the show.  I liked that.  Ultimately we saw that after The Mother's death, for a while her greatest fears about Ted were confirmed -- he was a guy living in old stories.  But finally at the end, with the help of his kids and the growth he experienced with The Mother, Ted is able to move on, even though he's "going back" to Robin.

[manl_lui]

I don't understand why people were a) surprised / shocked or b) terribly disappointed by the ending of HIMYM.

Nothing that happened in the finale was a surprise if you've been watching the last couple of seasons.  It wasn't meant to be some big twist.

At all times, it was a fun, light-hearted show that occasionally tried to transcend the "mid-20's friend-group sitcom" formula and address issues in a more realistic / mature / emotionally challenging way.  The finale was right in line with that.  I'm satisfied with the way that each of the characters' story arcs was concluded.  I don't have any major misgivings about the way the show concluded.

The one fair criticism that I think can be leveled at the finale, and by extension the entire last season, is that they spend 21 episodes on the wedding weekend (albeit with numerous flash-forwards) and then crammed a TON of stuff into the hour-long finale.


p.s. IP, I'm with you, I loved Psych.  Although if you wanna say HIMYM went on too long, the same is DEFINITELY true of Psych.   I like HIMYM a lot more than Friends, though, but that might just be because I'm a "millennial" and so I appreciate the jokes and the sensibility of HIMYM more.

I'm with you on this one...the reason why I loved the series is because HIMYM relates to me more than any other series I watched. I get the jokes cuz it's more in line with my generation, and also although it was a sitcom, I like the whole life aspect of it. I have a group of best friends with different jobs, careers, love life, ambitions and long/short term goals in life. Everyone goes through change and take numerous steps to get to where they are now. I followed the show since I was in high school - college - and now working. It's sort of like watching Boy Meets World when I was in elementary, the show kinda grows with you and new material are added as they grow older and wiser and see more things. Life was simple when you're young  but gets more difficult when they mature.

People don't like Barney when he fell in love with Robin but  loved his playboy lifestyle. Tbh, I love that change because everyone is changing in a way. The only person that didn't really change much is Marshall, he was the most consistent character in the show although his career changed a bit in terms of the path he wants to take as a lawyer.

[MBunge]

Robin ended up trying a marriage with Barney, and it didn't work out.  Barney was inspired by Robin to try and change his ways, and he succeeded for a while.  Then their marriage fell apart and he reverted to his old ways, until having a child by accident changed him.  Robin was sad about drifting apart from the group and having her marriage fail, but she poured herself into her work.  Ted got "The Mother" and he had the whole "married with kids" dream life until misfortune cut in and took his wife away from him too soon.  Then, many years later, suddenly it makes sense for Ted and Robin to give it another try.

And out of 9 seasons, how much time did they spend on that ultimately crucial series of events?  After spending how long demonstrating the Ted and Robin weren't right for each other and working how hard at getting Robin and Barney together?  I can get why some would like it but it doesn't seem hard to understand why a lot of perfectly reasonable viewers loathed it.

Mike

[PhoSita]

Robin ended up trying a marriage with Barney, and it didn't work out.  Barney was inspired by Robin to try and change his ways, and he succeeded for a while.  Then their marriage fell apart and he reverted to his old ways, until having a child by accident changed him.  Robin was sad about drifting apart from the group and having her marriage fail, but she poured herself into her work.  Ted got "The Mother" and he had the whole "married with kids" dream life until misfortune cut in and took his wife away from him too soon.  Then, many years later, suddenly it makes sense for Ted and Robin to give it another try.

And out of 9 seasons, how much time did they spend on that ultimately crucial series of events?  After spending how long demonstrating the Ted and Robin weren't right for each other and working how hard at getting Robin and Barney together?  I can get why some would like it but it doesn't seem hard to understand why a lot of perfectly reasonable viewers loathed it.

Mike

I'd say they spent the entire last season and change strongly hinting / foreshadowing that Robin and Barney weren't quite right for each other, and that Ted was the right guy for Robin.  But ultimately, at that point in time they weren't in a position to be together. 

I do agree, like I said, that they ought to have spent some more time developing some of the story events that got crammed into the finale.

[Moranis]

http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/04/03/how-i-met-your-mother-finale-robin-sparkles/
Apparently a number of scenes got cut from the finale.