Television How I Met Your Mother

What a pointless and boring episode this was. Apart from the Barney one minute recap and Barney's challenge of seducing the German bodyguard lady, I don't think I laughed. Basically without Barney, this would be a crap series.
 
Sitcoms always start off as comedy-focussed. Successful sitcoms then get commissioned for more series. However the writes can't keep at the same high level of comedy without it becoming stale (or they just run out of ideas), so they have to introduce more drama.

And it inevitably becomes duller.
 
Good episode last night.

The comedy was surprisingly good I thought. Robin getting turned on by herself, Marshall launching the baby in the air, and other stuff that escapes me.

Then they had the drama side of it at the end. Although it wasn't that dramatic. Personally I never cared for Quinn. She had a stupid name, her character was a bit shit, and she couldn't really act.

No idea what that line at the end was about though. About characters in funny situations that you care about? Weird.
 
That naked guy was quite annoying. It was decent though but in parts it was quite annoying.
 
Yeah it was ok actually, apart from the drama in the last 5 minutes which bored me.

Saul Goodman was very funny :D
 
I thought this was terrible, think it will be my last HIMYM episode for a while. Going through all the stuff with Barney and Quinn in last season and then breaking them up in the second episode of next season makes zero sense. Essentially there was no need for these shenanigans and they could have straight n moved to Barney-Robin. They also don't seem to have much of a clue as to how use Lily-Marshall as parents. Finally Ted living with his GF's ex fiance?Ok.
 
I thought this was terrible, think it will be my last HIMYM episode for a while. Going through all the stuff with Barney and Quinn in last season and then breaking them up in the second episode of next season makes zero sense. Essentially there was no need for these shenanigans and they could have straight n moved to Barney-Robin. They also don't seem to have much of a clue as to how use Lily-Marshall as parents. Finally Ted living with his GF's ex fiance?Ok.

This a thousand times over.

It was incredibly rushed and forced... plus we lose the 2nd best character the shows had for ages.

Not only that, but we're watching Ted and Victoria, knowing they don't end up together, and same with Robin and Anders from BSG (who by the way, is just a face at the moment) ... meaning any emotional beats they try to establish with those characters are incredibly pointless.

I am dreading the Barney-Robin episodes... if they're as bad as the ones from season 5, then have mercy.
 
Unfortunately the entire season will be rushed. All the cast are only signed up for this last season, and i think they were hopeful they would do a season 9, but it seems like that won't happen. So they've wrote season 7 like they have two more seasons left, and now they are writing season 8 as the last season.
 
This a thousand times over.

It was incredibly rushed and forced... plus we lose the 2nd best character the shows had for ages.

Not only that, but we're watching Ted and Victoria, knowing they don't end up together, and same with Robin and Anders from BSG (who by the way, is just a face at the moment) ... meaning any emotional beats they try to establish with those characters are incredibly pointless.

I am dreading the Barney-Robin episodes... if they're as bad as the ones from season 5, then have mercy.
Ted and that Victoria also seem to have lost the chemistry they had. Victoria's behavior around her ex fiance was also very odd, almost as if she had not spent any time with him. They have made him so cartoonish that you can picture her being engaged to him in fact. Even Friends who was much more sitcom-ish that HIMYM got such things right.
 
Wasn't awfully bored by it as I was watching it, was thinking "ok, decent-ish episode" (been a while now since I've thought "wow great episode" in from of HIMYM), but then the ending ruined it all. Absolutely no sense that that would break Barney and Quinn up, terrible lazy writing.

But yeah, they don't seem to know how to use Marshall and Lily anymore, Ted bores the feck out of me, there's no point to his relationship with Victoria (who, as pointed out by crappy, was indeed very weird around her ex fiancé), and can't be bothered with Robin and what's his face. I'm feeling obliged to watch this to the end now, put so much time in it, but I get the feeling we're all going to be coming in here every week complaining about it.
 
Wasn't awfully bored by it as I was watching it, was thinking "ok, decent-ish episode" (been a while now since I've thought "wow great episode" in from of HIMYM), but then the ending ruined it all. Absolutely no sense that that would break Barney and Quinn up, terrible lazy writing.

But yeah, they don't seem to know how to use Marshall and Lily anymore, Ted bores the feck out of me, there's no point to his relationship with Victoria (who, as pointed out by crappy, was indeed very weird around her ex fiancé), and can't be bothered with Robin and what's his face. I'm feeling obliged to watch this to the end now, put so much time in it, but I get the feeling we're all going to be coming in here every week complaining about it.

Well we've got to be entertained somehow!
 
Think the new season has started very well, compared to a few of the previous seasons. I think they just needed to stop with the "will they-wont they" between Barney/Robin, Ted/Robin cause it made the show very slow in terms of progress.
 
Worst show I've had the misfortune of watching. Closely followed by the 10 minutes of Grey's Anatomy I was forced to watch which raised hitherto dormant feelings of rage and violence.
 
Unfortunately the entire season will be rushed. All the cast are only signed up for this last season, and i think they were hopeful they would do a season 9, but it seems like that won't happen. So they've wrote season 7 like they have two more seasons left, and now they are writing season 8 as the last season.

Well, the programme is called "How I Met Your Mother" with a framing device of 'future Ted' narrating that very story to his kids. So once we know how he met their mother, it'd seem strange to carry it on. Not from a viewer's perspective, I'm sure there are people (me, for example), who'd carry on watching afterwards, but in the storytelling sense that the programme has lived on.

We also know that Ted meets the mother at 'a wedding' which I believe we know to be Barney/Robin's. We also know that's at the end of this season (do we not?).

Therefore, there shouldn't be a season 9 to sign on to should there? What I did find strange though, was someone saying there were rumours that Jason Segel wasn't signing on after season 8, implying that there would be a season 9.
 
I have a feeling that this is just me, but I think part of the reason I'm not enjoying this season as much as the rest is the same reason I didn't enjoy the final seasons of Friends as much, nor Scrubs, nor the ending to a nameless TV programme - everything's changing. I know it's a part of life, but you get the feeling that they're all at the peak of their lives around seasons 1-5. They're all establishing themselves in their careers whilst still living an enjoyable, relatively stress free life, and now there's a baby involved, the group is distancing itself, and it's something I've worried will happen to me someday.

But I guess as Ted said before moving in with Stella, you have to move on with your lives, or else you'll end up like Barney as an 80 year old.

And as JD once said: Change is inevitable, it's up to you to make the best of it.



I get very invested into sitcoms.
 
I have a feeling that this is just me, but I think part of the reason I'm not enjoying this season as much as the rest is the same reason I didn't enjoy the final seasons of Friends as much, nor Scrubs, nor the ending to a nameless TV programme - everything's changing. I know it's a part of life, but you get the feeling that they're all at the peak of their lives around seasons 1-5. They're all establishing themselves in their careers whilst still living an enjoyable, relatively stress free life, and now there's a baby involved, the group is distancing itself, and it's something I've worried will happen to me someday.

But I guess as Ted said before moving in with Stella, you have to move on with your lives, or else you'll end up like Barney as an 80 year old.

And as JD once said: Change is inevitable, it's up to you to make the best of it.



I get very invested into sitcoms.

That, or the writing has gotten awful and there are no funny bits anymore.
 
That, or the writing has gotten awful and there are no funny bits anymore.
This. It occurs with mostly all American sitcoms because they try to milk the audience for as long as they can. Scrubs went pants after Season 3 and only recovered in it's last season. Friends went into repetitive mode after S6. BBT right now is also all about stretching the show till at least 8 seasons.

I mean literally very little has moved in HIMYM universe from S3. They also can not even keep track of their character's motivations.

Robin's though about marriage and children keep changing every 6 episodes. Why in the world was she interested in wanting to be godmother if she is anti-kids?
 
This. It occurs with mostly all American sitcoms because they try to milk the audience for as long as they can. Scrubs went pants after Season 3 and only recovered in it's last season. Friends went into repetitive mode after S6. BBT right now is also all about stretching the show till at least 8 seasons.

I mean literally very little has moved in HIMYM universe from S3. They also can not even keep track of their character's motivations.

Robin's though about marriage and children keep changing every 6 episodes. Why in the world was she interested in wanting to be godmother if she is anti-kids?

Yup, the problem is that the writer's probably have all these great jokes and plots stored up in their heads before the show starts, and HIMYM had loads of clever stuff in the first few seasons, but that's primarily because they struggled for ratings back then (it nearly got cancelled twice) so they packed all their best shit in and constantly gave clues about the mother to try and keep their ratings up and not lose viewers.

Eventually the show got very popular (by around mid season four) and it showed because it's around that point that the writing seemed to get lazy and because it was so popular, they knew they could drag it out without fear of the network dropping it. So now they basically progress the mother story in the first and last episodes of the season, and throw in absolute meaningless drivel for the remaining 20 episodes.
 
This. It occurs with mostly all American sitcoms because they try to milk the audience for as long as they can. Scrubs went pants after Season 3 and only recovered in it's last season. Friends went into repetitive mode after S6. BBT right now is also all about stretching the show till at least 8 seasons.

I mean literally very little has moved in HIMYM universe from S3. They also can not even keep track of their character's motivations.

Robin's though about marriage and children keep changing every 6 episodes. Why in the world was she interested in wanting to be godmother if she is anti-kids?

That's because she can't have kids.
 
I think last week's was the episode that officially crossed the line to dramady. Comerama? It always had a slightly drama-like feel to it; it needed to, but the comedy is just gone. Marshall in this episode wasn't funny, but actually annoying. His least funny episode. Barney's little bit was slightly amusing in spells, although I'm guessing that was more of a set up to him getting back together with Robin.

That's not to say I'm not enjoying the show any more, but if not for its past reputation, I certainly couldn't get into it.

Anyone watch the modern episodes of Friends and not enjoy them as much as the old ones? Think I've mentioned this in this thread already, but it's like that to me. I imagine that in a few years we'll watch them back on E4, but be a bit disappointed when the newer episodes roll around.

Seemed to peak around the middle of season 5, from Rabbit Or Duck it was downhill. Although season 6 had some decent episodes, plus the fantastic Bad News (one of the best IMO).

In fact I think most sitcoms tend to peak just past their halfway stage. Friends around seasons 4, 5 and 6 was very good, same for Scrubs, which shot downhill when JD met Kim (shame really as it followed up the two Dr Cox episodes). The Big Bang Thoery should end up similar - seasons 3 & 4.

I guess we can only really hope that they leave it on a fantastic ending. Easy to feck these things up.
 
Thought this week's episode was very poor.

What really annoyed me about it was the Marshall storyline. It's a typical HIMYM episode where they introduce a concept that everyone's on board with (even though we've never heard about it before, but ok), the approval stamp thingy, and the whole episode will revolve around this. Marshall's storyline in it was ridiculous, badly written, and the 'twist' was stupid: it's a sitcom, so I'm not asking for realistic situations all around (I wasn't disturbed by the Barney/Robin storyline in this one where they vet strip clubs, it's not a situation that would ever arise like that, but I understand the comedic value of the situation so ok), but this was just pushing it, no way a guy would come into a room, take pictures of an 'entire case strategy' (sic) in a glass cubicle and be able to use it against a law firm. Or, for that matter, would a law firm leave its entire case company accessible to an outsider. That was just plain silly, and apparently they're going to milk that storyline. As for the Ted/Lily parts of the episode, I found them typically Ted boring in the 'I find out I'm not who I thought I was but in fact I'm still a great guy', very predictable and not even that funny.

As for the Robin/Barney conclusion, of course we knew it was coming, but it's still really annoying.
 
I've tried to get into this show but I just can't seem to like it. I think i've watched 13/14 episodes of Season 1. It started off OK but then I found myself getting bored.

Does the show get any better in Season 2?
 
Yeah I thought it did, but that was a long time ago, maybe my memory if faulty. If I recall correctly, season 1 was a bit weak, then season 2, 3 and 4 were very good, very funny, and since then, it's been downhill.
 
What the hell are they doing with Barney?

At the start of the season they were showing this guy who was serious with Quinn, Robin etc. Now he's suddenly back to square one. Morons.
 
Been awful lately. Used to love this show in the early seasons but now it's becoming more of a drama type thing. Even Barney is getting cringeworthy and boring. They really need to just end the show before they completely ruin it.
 
What the hell are they doing with Barney?

At the start of the season they were showing this guy who was serious with Quinn, Robin etc. Now he's suddenly back to square one. Morons.

Yeah it was as if they realized the thing with Quinn was a dead end and just wanted rid as quick as possible. Barney is (or was) at his best when single. The show really started going down hill when his initial relationship with Robin started, and has never picked back up since.
 
Yeah it was as if they realized the thing with Quinn was a dead end and just wanted rid as quick as possible. Barney is (or was) at his best when single. The show really started going down hill when his initial relationship with Robin started, and has never picked back up since.

True. The season 2 and 3 of this show when Barney was single were excellent. The show has gone downhill from that. I still watch it though purely because I've watched it for 8 seasons and it has become an habit for me :(
 
Yeah me too, maybe cause Tuesday is such a shit day anyway, it's not like it could do any more harm.

But mainly cause I've invested so much time in the thing and I feel I have to finish it, which I'm pretty sure is the case for most people now.
 
It's absolute crap but when you've watched 8 seasons, you have to continue.
 
It's absolute crap but when you've watched 8 seasons, you have to continue.

This is what I hate about some shows, it's the same with Dexter, you want to just say 'feck this, I'm done' but you've invested so much bloody time in it you want to know how it ends.
 
I'm in exactly the same boat. I can't imagine anyone still watching this show has been actually entertained during the last few seasons. The most positive thing I can say about this season is each episode is only 23 mins or whatever, so it doesn't waste too much of my time.
 
Thought this week's episode was very poor.

What really annoyed me about it was the Marshall storyline. It's a typical HIMYM episode where they introduce a concept that everyone's on board with (even though we've never heard about it before, but ok), the approval stamp thingy, and the whole episode will revolve around this.

Exactly the same this week. This time it's apparently cool to brag - and make up stories - about being a "teenage badass". Every episode seems like a filler at the moment and the writers have clearly run out of ideas. I'm not even sure if they're actually trying to make the show funny anymore or if they're just expecting people to keep watching no matter what. I really hope this is the last season, because otherwise it might very well be the first show I stop watching before the end. Loved it when it was good, but it's beyond pathetic now.