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Re: I'm going to pretend the last few seasons never happened Cannoli Send a noteboard - 09/04/2014 10:48:54 PM

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HIMYM was such a hilarious and great show, all the way up to the end of season 5. Season 6 was worse, but still good. Season 7 was mediocre, with some really good episodes. Season 8 was pretty bad. Season 9 was terrible. That's the basic breakdown, and the finale more than anything cemented the last season's position.

I don't have a problem with Ted and Robin getting together. I don't have a problem with Barney and Robin splitting up. I don't have a problem with the Mother dying. All of those elements, individually, are fine and could work and make for good storytelling. But the way it all happened, the way it was presented, all the bullshit that we have had to wade through for the last few years, makes me disgusted with this finale.

Marriages end, quite frequently, and Barney and Robin were always better when they were apart, or pining after one another, than when they were together. But the show has been building up to the Mother for 9 years, and presenting her as the most perfect and wonderful woman in existence. Which I can let go, annoying as it is, because this is a story Ted tells his kids, and therefore we can assume he is lying his ass off. The wedding between Robin and Barney has been built up for 3 seasons, their relationship for even longer, almost for the entire duration of the show.


This is the bit I find most risable. It's their story, and they can plot out whatever actions they want. The specifics of the outcome don't matter as such, but given that this ending has been planned for nine years, with the kids' segment being taped back in the first season or two, why did they drag us through so much Barney and Robin relationship drama, and not at all telling the story of a doomed couple rushing into something they didn't really want and are not ready for? Why did they bother with the Mother at all, much less write for her in a way that made her interesting as a character, especially for fans who were starved for something new and not ridiculous on the show?
For both of these highly important elements to just be dealt with off-screen in such an offhand manner is incredibly infuriating, and damning for the show. Couldn't they simply cut out some, or preferably most, of the fluff they padded season 9 with, get through the wedding, and actually show us some of the courtship, and the newlywed's relationship? You know, actually show rather than tell the story. Isn't that storytelling 101?
Indeed. It looks like another case of having a good idea without thinking the execution through, committing to it and carrying on long past the point where it was working. They announced that the last season would be set entirely at the wedding weekend, around the time the previous season finale was aired, so they had to stick with it, even thought they ran out of things to say. They hit exactly the wrong amount of airtime for Tracy, too much for what her role turned out to be (a step in Ted's development and a standard to prove that his love for Robin endures anything), but not enough to salvage the season for those who found her presence a breath of fresh air, or who were mislead into becoming too invested in her. It would be one thing if she was in every episode with flash forwards, and flashbacks, and near-misses at the inn, and it was great and everyone loved it and then they yanked the rug out by revealing her eventual death a deacade later. At least the fans could say they had season 9 (and really, what do those last few minutes of the finale matter against the length and stretch of an entire show or season? ). If they had gone with happily ever after, then they could say the scant appearances in the last season are acceptable because what's really important is the lifetime with Ted. But to do as much as they did for a placeholder relationship?
Though I'm not even surprised. I knew the finale would be bad, I just didn't know in what way. The writers have been phoning it in for a long while.

I was actually hoping, as late as two days before when I expressed as much at a family party where several of us watchers were discussing it, that they might pull this off, since it was something plotted out back when the creative team was at their peak.

Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
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Well, the finale of How I Met Your Mother was hilarious! An amazing joke nine years in the making. - 01/04/2014 12:47:25 PM 785 Views
Okay, what happened? - 01/04/2014 04:05:45 PM 539 Views
Re: Okay, what happened? - 01/04/2014 05:19:48 PM 564 Views
Wait a minute..... - 01/04/2014 05:36:01 PM 532 Views
Guessed at a couple episodes before, but otherwise, yeah. - 01/04/2014 10:34:06 PM 489 Views
Thanks for the recap *NM* - 02/04/2014 05:31:44 PM 258 Views
I'm going to pretend the last few seasons never happened - 06/04/2014 08:14:37 AM 529 Views
Re: I'm going to pretend the last few seasons never happened - 09/04/2014 10:48:54 PM 601 Views
For the hell of it, I watched the finale..... - 06/04/2014 06:48:27 PM 492 Views

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