With that in mind, I have no Next On Netflix this week, due to it being taken up with the Fancy Thing... I might cheat and just entitle it as both features tomorrow but at the moment the thought of doing that is making me feel little cheap, so I'm going to sleep on it.
In other news, I have officially finished watching every episode of How I Met Your Mother. If you haven't watched any of it yet, it's a series about a guy called Ted telling his kids, 30 years in the future, the story of how he met their mother... without really mentioning their mother all that much within the story and starting about 7 years before he actually meets her. It's pretty funny and I have generally enjoyed it as a whole. However, there is just one teeny tiny little thing, if there is something I hate more than the incorrect use of the word your, it's when a series gets me invested in them for years of my life and then throws it all away with the worst finale in the world (*cough* Lost *cough*).
How I Met Your Mother did that. Now I want to be clear right now, normally I skirt around the possibility of spoilers, and try to make my reviews and posts as user friendly to everyone as I can, but such is my rage and annoyance over this finale, I'm breaking my rule. I'm not only going to allude to the ending of this series, I'm going to pick it apart and have a little rant about the whole thing. So, if you are not aware of the ending, go away now, because things are about to get real in here. I will add though that the series, on a whole, is pretty entertaining and definitely worth the watch... I think... see now I'm torn. Stupid ending has ruined everything.
* * *
* * *
Are they gone? Okay... here goes.
I shot myself in the foot when it came to preparing for this particular finale. You see, I got to about Season 7 (there are 9 seasons in all) and I found myself, once again, getting stupidly impatient that this sodding 'mother' was nowhere to found... at least not without hiding behind a yellow umbrella and avoiding Ted at all costs. As such, I did what I normally do when I'm binge watching a TV show, I googled the classic question "In what episode does...?" etc and so forth. In this occasion, it was "In what episode does Ted meet his kid's mother." What this led me to was a link to Wikipedia with a little bit of text about the relationship between Ted and this mystery mother? Now, I'm pretty certain that if you're going to be writing a Wikipedia page about a series, it's just bad manners to put the ultimate twist of the entire series within the first sentence of the page. So when I read "Ted meets his late wife..." yeeeaaah, I was pissed. I do NOT read spoilers before hand. I was only checking the episode because I knew that the meeting of this mother was a done deal and I just wanted to know how much longer I was going to have to wait until I could see it (which incidentally was the main reason why I stopped watching the show years ago).
So, as such, although I added reasoning to this, hoping that Ted actually married someone else before he met their mother who then went ahead and died, I soon realised that, by the end of Season 8, when he meets her for the first time, this was not going to be the case. Due to this, I spent the entire Season 9 watching it and knowing that she was going to die.
Now, let me be clear, the fact that she dies really isn't all that annoying to me. It kinda makes sense as to why he would be talking about her so much to his kids, and I very much enjoyed the links between the early series and the reasons for how he met their mother. It showed that the writers actually knew how they wanted it to go down from the beginning, thus showing that the storyline had been properly thought out, unlike some other TV shows (*cough* Lost *cough*).
My real irk is the whole "Robyn" debacle. That was not thought out at all. The whole way through the series, the audience is shown time and time again exactly why Ted and Robyn don't work. They want different things, Robyn is always travelling around the place and Ted likes to nest in one place and have a family, Barney is completely and utterly perfect for her... etc and so forth. I mean, come on guys, it's not like they don't constantly try to make it work. They try all the time. And the series was so hellbent on letting us all know that it would always just fall apart each time. So, the idea that he runs off to find her at the end of it all with his trusty blue french horn was so out of the blue and ridiculous, I got mad. I mean, if the rest of the episodes taught us anything, this means absolutely nothing, because Robyn's going to go off and do her travelling thing and not want to settle down, whilst Ted has a family to look after, thus making the whole romantic gesture redundant because they will just break up a couple of months later.
I am also mad that it didn't work out between Robyn and Barney. Especially as the entire of Season 9 is based around their wedding and focuses on proving to the audience that Robyn and Barney make far more sense that Robyn and Ted had ever done. It's like they were trying for some form of twist, but in order for a twist like that to work, you need to put in at least a few hints along the way that it might happen, instead of blatantly rejecting the idea, otherwise it's just disjointed and doesn't work. Besides, I liked Barney and Robyn, it made sense. Having said that, I can even get on board with the idea that it wouldn't work out in the long run, that also makes sense. But if it doesn't work out for Barney, then it sure as HELL won't work out for Ted.
And that's my grind. I also think there should have been more episodes with the actual mother, but I understand that that was never going to be the case and I love the other characters too much to wish for less time with them, so I can forgive that particular issue.
To leave on a positive note: Lilly and Marshall might actually be my most favourite fictional TV couple of all time. I love that, for once, a series shows you can make entertaining TV by having a couple who would never break up (we're ignoring the spat at the end of season 1). There are so many TV shows out there that I have lost interest in because apparently no one in the fictional world is capable of sustaining a long term relationship without cheating on the other or breaking up with them because sometimes "love just isn't enough" ... please. Relationships are hard and fun and worth working at. That is just as entertaining without adding in constant obstacles the moment the couple seem to be happy. There should be more TV shows that show that. In fact, How I Met Your Mother, The Office USA, and the British show Him and Her are the only three I can think of right now that actually do it. For everything else, I find myself watching a show of two people getting together and immediately begin preparing myself for their inevitable break up further down the line, which always ends up happening. You're making me cynical TV writers, and I don't like it! Don't be afraid to make some changes! I do agree that not all couples need to be happy and strong in your shows because, again, that wouldn't be real, but you can throw in at least one couple in every so often and still make good TV... just give it a try. I dare you.
Peace out my lovelies.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment