That's how it should have ended? I managed 38 seconds before the nausea became too strong to carry on. Mind you I stopped watching about 3 seasons a go so if this is a better alternative then I don't feel like I've missed much! That clip was awful.http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/how-i-met-your-mother-to-release-alternate-ending-20140405
I don't understand how the people in charge of the show didn't realize that people would hate the obvious "twist" ending.
This should have been the ending.
Television How I Met Your Mother
- Thread starter olesmyhero
- Start date
Didn't absolutely hate the ending but would have preferred it to finish in the obvious way.
Still the first six seasons are some of favourite of any sitcom.
Still the first six seasons are some of favourite of any sitcom.
That is the ending of the original finale, the only thing that's different is they added an extra 5 minutes on where the mother dies and Ted goes to give the blue horn to Robin yet again. With HIMYM you take what you get nowadays.
If the show hadn't dragged on (and because of that revisited the Ted-Robin-thing 100 times) the ending would've worked a lot better imo.
Absolutely. The problem wasn't the ending itself, it's the way they got there. Why keep on harping about the "one" if it was going to be Robin all along? Why did Ted keep on 'letting go' of Robin numerous times if that was the ending? Very shoddy writing imo. Also makes Robin a very poor character.
They had like 5-6 huge plot developments in the last episode, why they didn't use them properly in previous seasons instead of having 99% filler episodes is beyond me.
I gave it another go and I like it, albeit I'm probably in the same boat as @Mockney, in that I don't think it's that amazing.
The biggest issue in the end was that the majority of viewers were rooting for Ted and the mother (or Ted dying alone because he's a giant tool). Ted and Robin wasn't what most of us wanted to see, especially after the forced will-they-or-won't-they-ermahgerd shite that was done so poorly it ruined the whole future relationship between them.
Instead of giving the viewers what they want they go ahead and kill off the mother, who has been portrayed as the perfect woman, and leave her as a footnote in the end and have Ted and Robin dance on her grave while they live happily ever after with their thousand dogs and one blue French horn. The worst of all is that the kids are the victims of Ted's manipulative and sociopathic bullshit story supposedly involving their dead mother just so their father can go and get some of Barney's sloppy seconds.
The whole thing reeks. Ted's a horrible human being.
Instead of giving the viewers what they want they go ahead and kill off the mother, who has been portrayed as the perfect woman, and leave her as a footnote in the end and have Ted and Robin dance on her grave while they live happily ever after with their thousand dogs and one blue French horn. The worst of all is that the kids are the victims of Ted's manipulative and sociopathic bullshit story supposedly involving their dead mother just so their father can go and get some of Barney's sloppy seconds.
The whole thing reeks. Ted's a horrible human being.
In fairness it can't be any worst than the ending they went with.
For a moment there I was really confused by this.
I don't think I'd actually posted after watching the ending, I've given the show quite a bit of stick for a while, but I enjoyed the ending. Not so much because of its content itself, to be perfectly honest there wasn't a shadow of doubt in my mind it would end with Ted & Robin together, and I reckoned they'd probably kill the mother off. When you look into it, it's a bit sick. But I cared so little for most of the characters by the end that it didn't really matter to me, and I thought it at least felt a bit real. I thought the finale itself was rushed, and despite liking the resolution of some characters (I enjoyed the way Barney supposedly turns his life around, though it could've lasted a real 20 minute episode and been entertaining, not just boxed in between two other scenes), I would've wanted to see more. I think they managed to give a feeling of reality for some stuff, how the friends drift apart from the group they had in their 20s and so on, I don't know it felt sincere. And we watched the 5-6 final episodes as binge watching, and I enjoyed them more, I thought the last few episodes were quite funny once again.
Anyway, I say I enjoyed it, really I enjoyed it mildly, I guess my expectations were just very low.
Anyway, I say I enjoyed it, really I enjoyed it mildly, I guess my expectations were just very low.
Here is the finale with the alternate ending. Skip to around 36:40 to see it.
This should have definitely aired. Much better ending.
Can we pretend that actually was the ending? The one that actually aired was all kinds of stupid.
Yes the show went on too long, and there was so much filler and it wasnt as great as the first few seasons, but this clip would have been a decent save in terms of endings.
Yes the show went on too long, and there was so much filler and it wasnt as great as the first few seasons, but this clip would have been a decent save in terms of endings.
Looks like Fox managed to delete all the standard sources of this alternative ending. Was it just Ted re-capping the whole story of how he met the mother?
The alternative ending was that good it turned the series into a masterpiece. Sadly you will never get to see it.
Ted sailed off into a storm and then became a lumberjack.
If by never you mean until they release the DVD set in September, you're probably...still wrong.
Is that the one with umbrella at the very end?
Everytime I do my best to forget that horrible ending, somebody reminds me of it. Truly one of the most horrific pieces of TV I have ever seen.
100 times better than the actual ending. I'm going to pretend this is what happened.
It wasn't that great but still thousand times better than the original. Still don't understand why they wasted an entire season on a wedding destined to fail where nothing actually happened and crammed the rest of the story in two episodes.
I really didn't mind the original either. Well, it wasn't great or hardly even good, but I just wanted it to finish, so welcomed anything. Last couple of seasons were worse than that ending.
So how did he meet her? Facebook?
Miles better than the original one, whoever thought to go with the other one should be shot.
That was much better yes, we'll pretend that was the real end!
FFS
Who in the right mind thought the ending that aired was better than that? Strikes me as stubbornness, they really wanted the ending they set out with at the start, rather the ending it needed.
It reminds me a bit of Mass Effect. Release the stupid ending so that people don't talk about the stupid game.
And previous seasons were poor, with final, 9th season being pure trash.
And previous seasons were poor, with final, 9th season being pure trash.
I always think a lot of these shows don't anticipate actually going on for as long as they do and therefore the ending is inevitably an anti climax. It happened with another show (which I won't say as it kind of ruins it if you've not seen it) and the whole thing was just a massive disappointment in the end. IT must be hard for the writers though as they may have only thought the show would be 4-5 seasons, the ending still wouldn't of been great but at least you've only "wasted" half the time watching it I suppose.
The alternative ending isn't even that good really though it's better than the original. With this show it was never going to be a great ending really, they introduced the mother for hardly any time at all so no one is even that bothered by her. I suppose that's the logic of him getting back with Robin, at least the viewers had some interest in that story. It's a bit of a poor mans Ross and Rachel really to an extent.
This is the producers fault in the first place, though, they should tell the network that no, they can't order another season because we don't have the material to keep it good much longer. This should have happened at about season 4 or 5.
Yeah that's true. The temptation is the money though. I agree the show should of ended years ago and it would of been good (I only watched about half the episodes in Series 9 and felt like I missed nothing.) The highest viewed seasons of the show though were 10, 8, 4 & 9 which does back up the argument that it was a cash cow until the end of the show, probably not that easy to just decide to end it.
Yea it's definitely about money, and fair enough they've spun a fortune out of it, but if they'd wanted to be remembered more fondly and have people look back on a good show that went out on a high then they should have ended it sooner.
Plenty of shows do it, although possibly not many in the comedy genre now that I think about it.
Yeah that's true. The show will probably be remembered as a bit of an anti climax now more than a classic (though I agree with you that if it ended after 4 or 5 it would of been classed as that, the rest of it had it's moments but was a bit average.)
I think the show really suffered from the fact that it's whole premise was the reveal of the mother. There was really nothing they could do to live up to the expectation as it had gone on that long. There's other examples I'd say which have gone on to long, The Simpsons is awful now, Happy Days was the classic wasn't it? Spawned the whole "jumping the shark" thing. Some people argue Friends went on to long, I personally still enjoyed it though. I've never seen Happy Days so can't comment on that but Friends and The Simpsons didn't suffer in the same way that HIMYM did in the sense where it was waiting for 8 years for some epic conclusion only to be let down. Realistically for example from Series 5/6 of Friends you knew Chandler and Monica would stay together, from Series 1/2 you knew Ross and Rachel would end up together. The only ambiguous ones were Joey and Phoebe and they got sorted with Joey getting a spin off and Phoebe marrying Mike.
the Joey spin off, I forgot about that. But yeah you're right, they put themselves in a corner with the whole framing of the show.
Simpsons definitely dropped off in a big way but didn't it have a bit of a revival for a while?
I've seen plenty of Happy Days but don't remember it from the first runs and not well enough to remember it falling off but obviously yea it did very literally jump the shark, giving us the phrase.
Has there been a comedy series that has gone out on its own terms rather than tailing off into poor ratings first? They even managed to ruin Scrubs.
Flight of the Conchords?
But yeah you're right, they put themselves in a corner with the whole framing of the show.
Simpsons definitely dropped off in a big way but didn't it have a bit of a revival for a while?
I've seen plenty of Happy Days but don't remember it from the first runs and not well enough to remember it falling off but obviously yea it did very literally jump the shark, giving us the phrase.
Has there been a comedy series that has gone out on its own terms rather than tailing off into poor ratings first? They even managed to ruin Scrubs.
That's HBO though, they're generally more receptive to when the creators want to end the show.
Never saw it - any good?
Seinfeld?
Another series with perceived poor finale. I liked it though.
Another series with perceived poor finale. I liked it though.
Arrested Development?
But yeah you're right, they put themselves in a corner with the whole framing of the show.
Simpsons definitely dropped off in a big way but didn't it have a bit of a revival for a while?
I've seen plenty of Happy Days but don't remember it from the first runs and not well enough to remember it falling off but obviously yea it did very literally jump the shark, giving us the phrase.
Has there been a comedy series that has gone out on its own terms rather than tailing off into poor ratings first? They even managed to ruin Scrubs.