How I Met Your Mother - Season 6

I'm a little conflicted about this season. On one hand, it was funnier and more clever than last year, when the show was still pretty good but didn't quite have the creative spark it did earlier. The gimmicks came back in a big way, and while relying on tricks to get by can seem tacky and often result in stuff that just doesn't play well, this show makes it work. It's part of its charm - the jokes aren't usually as sharp as some better comedies, but the cast is a lot of fun and they're always trying new things, messing around with time and hidden clues. I think this season did well with that stuff, and it was generally funny too.

On the other hand, the amount of progress we're making towards the show's promised end game is pretty pathetic. I know it's silly to complain about the overarching plot in a sitcom, but the show is called How I Met Your Mother, and every single episode features Bob Saget using narration to frame the story within the context of his long journey towards maturation and finally meeting the woman of his dreams. All we really learned this year is that Ted won't meet her until he's at someone else's wedding, and now we have to wait for that character to get married before he can really get anywhere. I believe the show has been renewed for two more seasons, and if that marks the show's end and he doesn't meet her until the finale - well, eight years is a heck of a lot of background to give your kids before you get to the point of the story.

Again, it's a sitcom - the point of the show is to entertain the viewer with jokes and likable personalities. But the writers of this show have always obviously put more effort into the story that you have to in these cases, and I just want it to pay off. We don't really know if the show will end when they meet or if it will keep going to show how they get together, though the former seems more likely as each season passes by without them meeting, and the hints and gotchas are starting to become a strain on the series, and a satisfying ending seems like a difficult proposition. Not that they can't do it, but I'll be impressed if they do.

The whole issue is affecting the week by week course of the show, too. It's gotten to the point where I can no longer give a crap about any of Ted's relationships anymore, because I know that these women aren't going to end up mattering. This entire season found him balancing a woman with a professional conflict she caused, and it was frustrating because I knew, and the writers knew, and everyone knew that it was a dead end. The show has had success here in the past, but it's starting to not work anymore. Luckily Marshall and Lily were really strong this year, particularly Jason Segel's Marshall, who had probably the best single season of development and growth of anyone yet in the series. Their family changed and and moved forward while Ted and to a similar extent Robin and Barney basically spun their wheels. I'm going to keep watching the show because it's still fun and I still have hope for the long term elements, but I'm definitely less confident than I was before.

How I Met Your Mother - Season 5

So can Ted meet his kids' mother now? I can't say I'm not a little tired of them dancing around the topic. Are they deathly afraid to actually introduce her or something? It's been five years. I think people like the characters enough that they'll stick around to see how things continue to develop. This year they even went so far as to have Ted be in the same classroom as her and even be standing in her apartment. Come on. Your kids don't need this much background information.

Oh well. I still enjoy the show despite the increasing feeling that they're just messing with me. The Barney/Robin throwdown turned out to be a waste of time, but otherwise it was pretty fun. Lots of good callbacks, like the continuation of the slap bet, revealing Barney's actual playbook, and another of the gang's doppelgangers showing up. They finished up the umbrella storyline, though without actually doing much with it. I realize none of this makes sense to people who don't watch the show, but HIMYM is that rare thing, a traditional sitcom that actually rewards frequent viewing and develops its characters rather than just throwing bad relationship jokes at the wall for twenty minutes before everyone learns a lesson. I can't honestly say it's as funny as it's ever been, but there's still lots of great bits like Barney's musical ode to suits and showing people's emotional problems as actual baggage. I still really like watching it, I just hope they actually go somewhere with the supposed premise soon.

How I Met Your Mother - Season 4

So now I'm caught up. While the show has always been funny, only now does it seem to actually be getting somewhere with the actual supposed point of the whole thing, the story of the title. I'm curious how much planning has actually gone into this, because they started dropping hints about future events in the previous season, and really did it in earnest this time, but all of it seemed to culminate around the finale with very little that I can think of as far as suggestions for what's next, other that Bob Saget basically saying "No seriously, I'm getting to the point now". The whole season is basically life kicking the crap out of Ted in order to apparently get him to make a decision that will lead to him meeting his wife, though I can already see how they're going to continue pussy-footing around the issue with teases and fake outs.

One of the secretly most interesting things of watching this time was noticing all the ways they tried to hide the fact that both female leads were pregnant for at least part of the filming. Some worked, like when Lily wins an eating contest and has a resultant bulge, others not so much, like loose shirts and bags or boxes doing a fairly poor job of obscuring it. They even wrote Alyson Hannigan out for a few episodes when I guess it was especially bad. There's not a whole lot to say about the actual comedy, it's a nice mix of clever wordplay, snappy dialogue, and humorously over-elaborate rules, diagrams, and theories about dating. Just a couple days from when I'm writing about this until season five begins, and I couldn't have timed it better.

How I Met Your Mother - Season 3

Hmm, what should I talk about this time? Instead of a bittersweet finale, this season ends with a couple cliffhangers. I'm not sure I actually truly care what happens to these characters yet, but they're doing a solid job of developing them without taking the focus off the humor. With Marshall and Lily married, their conflicts are more financial in nature than human. Honestly, I'm not finding that aspect terribly compelling. And Robin just sort of seemed like she was treading water this season. They're really trying to humanize Barney, which I'm not sure isn't a mistake. Ted plays the field a bit but eventually gets into another serious relationship, this time with Sarah Chalke from Scrubs, playing basically the same character.

As always there are several good and clever bits, like the Bro Code being an actual legal text, the episode where Ted the narrator can't remember a girl's name so the characters refer to her as Blahblah and he replaces references to marijuana with sandwiches, and Marshall using Thanksgiving to completely torture Barney with the promise of an incoming slap (Oh yeah, after a bet he earned five slaps on him and to date has only used three, one of my favorite running gags ever in a show). The two minute date is also one of the cutest and nicest things I've seen in a while. I'm starting to wonder how long the show is going to end up lasting, but I'm still enjoying watching it.

How I Met Your Mother - Season 2

Are you worried I won't catch up in time for the season five premiere? Joke's on you, man. I'm writing this almost a week before it will show up. Now that I'm halfway through this show I can admit it's far better than I expected, although still outside of the top five best current comedies. This season felt a bit different than the first, since the main character Ted spends most of the time in a relationship instead of looking for the perfect one. It's a little more mature, without changing the style of humor that makes it enjoyable. I'd still prefer it if it was single camera, but I actually decided I prefer the laugh track over a live audience, at least for this show. The reason is that they do a lot of quick cutaways and playing around with the timeline that wouldn't really work if they were beholden to an audience watching them make it, and besides, most live reactions are touched up with a laugh track anyway.

A trend that I've noticed with this show is bittersweet season finales. Both times, they've ended with things going really right for some people and really wrong for others. I've gotten over my desire to see Ted get his ass kicked, although I imagine it might rear up again at some point. Barney's still the best character which isn't too surprising, and even mild attempts to sympathize his character can't prevent him from staying great. At least not yet. Marshall and Lily are still an entertaining pair, and right now I'm just rehashing because I don't have much else new to say. It's a funny show worth checking out. Whee.

How I Met Your Mother - Season 1

I haven't seriously followed a multi-camera sitcom in years, let alone one with a laugh track, so it took some convincing for me to check this one out. That convincing came in the form of everyone I know who's watched it calling it one of the funniest shows on TV, and the hard to deny the fact that it stars two Whedonverse alums and an Apatowcolyte. Those three stars are genuinely enjoyable as always, and the other two are a cute enough will-they-won't-they (which the narrator has said they ultimately don't) that it was easy enough to keep watching. The basic premise is that the show is actually in the future where the protagonist tells his kids the story of how their parents met, which takes place in the past, which happens to be our present. He takes the role of narrator (voiced by Bob Saget, which is odd because the character is 27 when the show starts and the actor already has his big boy voice), and begins the confusingly long-winded story.

Ted is an architect who is spurred to step up his attempts to find a mate for life after his friends Marshall and Lily, played by Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan, get engaged. He meets and quickly falls for Robin, although things don't quite work out and he spends a lot of time bouncing between trying to land her again and going after other girls and generally making a big ass of himself. I'm actually surprised I liked him at all considering the amazingly moronic things he does in the name of love. Some of it isn't just idiotic, it's downright awful and hurtful to other people, and I'm still waiting for him to really get nailed at some point. I really can't dislike a show with Neil Patrick Harris in this form though, and he could probably carry it all by himself even without his other recognizable costars. He plays Barney, extreme womanizer and corporate dick, and is actually probably a worse person than Ted, but you can't not like him. Definitely the reason to stick with the show. I have three more seasons to work through before the fifth premiers on my birthday, so I'm gonna get to it.