View Full Version : TV How I Met Your Mother (Spoilers)
I knew it. The mother was dead. Oh they denied it beforehand, but that was just trying to quell the rumors. I did have the timing wrong. I figured it would be soon after the funeral or one year later. Making it 6 years so that it was past mourning for Ted to get back together with Robin, while I appreciate the intent wasn't completely satisfying. I was bummed along with Lily that Robin and Barney divorced. There is a point to life not being all one big happily ever after, but I guess I caught up in the romance. What also bothered me a little was the kids' point - the story was really about Robin, almost as if the premise of the show was a fake out. I can't say what ending I would have preferred, and too much sappiness of happily ever after can also be bad, but ultimately I'm not disappointed.
I just realized though something they could have done to improve the last scene. There was that episode where Ted and Robin got "engaged" if they were both 40 and single. Showing that flashback scene along with the dogs and blue trumpet should have been there.
Blackfang108
2014-04-01, 06:53 AM
I understand that the Kid's final reaction scene was filmed back in 2005. I get that.
Back in seasons 1 through, say, 4, I think that ending would have worked for me.
But to spend 9 seasons of character development, and devote multiple seasons to setting up that last wedding, only to hit the reset button in the [censored] epilogue, merely angered me.
It's not that the mother was killed off (although I HATED that development), it's that her death felt like a cheap throwaway for the sake of preserving the status quo of Ted trying to get with Robin. After multiple rejections. After NINE SEASONS of showing why the two of them DO NOT WORK together.
The more I think of this ending, the more I start to think "Maybe it DID end worse than Dexter did..."
It seems telling that the last two long-running shows that I watched both decided to say "Character Development? What character development?" 15 minutes from the series end.
I disliked the ending. Took the wind out of the whole season and just didn't feel right. They showed Ted getting over Robin and frankly Robin was never AS into Ted as vice versa. The whole hour was pretty depressing rather than a nice light hearted ending to the show. Poor choice on their part. Not everything needs to be edgy and realistic, especially in sitcoms.
Also the way the episode was paced is going to make this a TERRIBLE episode for syndication. When I looked at the time, the first episode would end with Robin walking out of the Halloween party. That first half is going to be a completely terrible episode when they re-run it and have to limit it to half an hour.
DrBurr
2014-04-01, 10:14 AM
I love how Ted's daughter exposes how the story is really about how Ted never got over Robin and not their mother. But I hate how this story reverts Barney's character back into the man he was in the first episode then hastily develops him into a papa bear. I could accept that he and Robin got divorced endings aren't always happy but Barney has proven hes capable of romantic relationships besides the one he shared with Robin. Just felt really cheap and that maintaining the status quo was more important than giving a satisfying resolution.
If some of these twists were actually used in this long season and instead didn't have us watch shenanigans at Barney and Robin's wedding maybe I wouldn't feel so cheated.
Aedilred
2014-04-01, 10:17 AM
Yeah, I wasn't that keen on the ending. On the one hand, it was a conclusion to one of the predominant story arcs of the show (Ted & Robin), but that conclusion also necessitated throwing out another important long-running arc (Barney & Robin) which had had more screen time of late, and also of course felt like a bit of a cop out on what's supposed to be the main premise (Ted & Tracy).
In particular, looking back over the last two, possibly even three seasons, it really is all Barney and Robin. This whole season was establishing them as a couple, and Ted letting go of her and meeting someone else. Yes, Barney and Robin were dysfunctional, but we knew that years ago, and this season seemed to be about getting that to work, with Barney's ongoing character evolution and promises and Robin and Ted accepting that they weren't right for each other. That looked like it was turning into quite a satisfying conclusion to the show and for it to junk all of that in one episode, restore Barney to his former self only for him to get the same conclusion he should have had with Robin as a result of a new development introduced only in this episode, was deeply unsatisfying.
Really, too, I wanted to see more of Ted and Tracy together. That's something that's bothered me throughout this last season, that although we get glimpses of them the focus is still almost entirely on the old gang. There was quite a lot of filler, too (pretty much the entire "No Questions Asked" episode comes to mind) which could have been better used. I was expecting the last double-parter to show us more Ted and Tracy... but instead we got a load of flash-forwards in which Tracy was still at best a secondary character. Killing her off, especially in what came across as a bit of an offhand way, didn't really have any impact because we still don't really know them as a couple.
I'm not sure what this means for my overall perception of the show. It was never the greatest thing on television, but it was ok, and the ongoing story arcs and teases of his meeting Tracy, etc. gave it a kind of credibility - but I think it needed a good ending to justify its own indulgences. I'm not sure this was it, and looking back over the time it's taken to get here, including the massive digression with Barney and Robin - as it was eventually revealed to be - I'm not sure it gets away with it.
Cizak
2014-04-01, 12:37 PM
I hated it. Probably the worst way they possibly could have ended it. I'm actually genuinly shocked at how horrible it was.
The whole series never stops showing us exactly why Ted and Robin are never going to work. That was the whole point to the story. To show Ted's journey, pains and re-lapses on the way to Tracy (we knew her name for a grand total of three and a half minutes, by the way). To show why nothing on the way to her was never going to be as good as Tracy. If we imagine a continuation to the ending, there's two alternatives: Either Robin is the mature one and starts a conversation where they realise they are not going to work, or they date for a few months before breaking up again.
"How I Settled for Your Mother"
(we knew her name for a grand total of three and a half minutes, by the way).
Well we knew her first name since the episode where Ted met the stripper who's name was Tracy and he pretended that was the mother to the kids (which was WAY back). The kids thought he might have been telling the truth (after their surprised "what?") which implied that the stripper had to have the same name as the mother (else the kids would know it wasn't her). I'm actually surprised they kept that consistent. They were generally good with continuity over the seasons though.
Aedilred
2014-04-01, 01:58 PM
Well we knew her first name since the episode where Ted met the stripper who's name was Tracy and he pretended that was the mother to the kids (which was WAY back). The kids thought he might have been telling the truth (after their surprised "what?") which implied that the stripper had to have the same name as the mother (else the kids would know it wasn't her).
That's a really good point. I can't remember if I noticed that at the time, or if anyone other than you remembers it (kudos!) but it makes perfect sense in retrospect. Realistically I imagine they will have come up with her name at the same time as the other characters (stuff like their initials being the same makes sense when you look at the umbrella and consider Ted is absolutely the sort of person to put his initials on things) so that's some epic foreshadowing there.
I'm actually surprised they kept that consistent. They were generally good with continuity over the seasons though.
Realistically, they had to be. The only way they could get away with telling such a long narrative which often sacrificed jokes for character development and ongoing story is if their continuity was as watertight as possible. I was actually impressed with the number of callbacks and references they managed to cram into the last season; they did actually manage to give the impression that the characters inhabited a world with other characters doing their own stuff who would drift in and out of the story (with the exception of most of Barney's one-night-stands, admittedly), and just because we hadn't seen someone in a while on screen didn't stop them coming up in conversation (apart from Hurley, I guess, although that was a one - or as it turns out two- time joke). It's one of the reasons it surprised me that the ending was so badly misjudged.
Helanna
2014-04-01, 02:42 PM
I hated this finale. I've heard some people say "Well, that's the point. In real life, people die, and people grow apart, and things just don't work out the way you would hope". Well, maybe I'd be more okay with the ending if it wasn't so poorly written.
Spoiler'd for length, because I'm using this to vent.
First off, Tracy's death. Wow, we got what, a whole two sentences about that? Eight years of waiting to see her, and one year of building up how perfect she is for Ted, and we get two sentences. Her death seems like it's just shoving her out of the way so she'll stop getting in the way of Ted/Robin. Maybe this could have worked as an emotional punch or a "life sucks" lesson if we had known the mother better - if she'd met Ted a couple seasons ago, and had become part of the group, and the reason Ted was telling the story was so that his kids could know more about their mother. (And maybe someone could you know, seem sad about her death). But honestly I've never liked the "the mother is dead" theory, and I never thought it would be true. HIMYM is, at heart, a fairly lighthearted comedy show. I'm not watching it so I can learn a valuable lesson about how unexpected and precious life is and all those cliches. I'm watching it so I can laugh and so I can watch the main character get the romance he's spent nine years looking for.
Next up: Barney and Robin. Again: several seasons worth of buildup, just to be quickly torn down and shoved in a closet because gods forbid anything get in the way of the Robin/Ted endgame. Now, I'm a bit biased. I was a fan of Barney/Robin, and I was really happy about their wedding. You know, the wedding we spent an entire friggin' season on. I didn't mind the framing device, but it just seems so pointless now. I don't want to re-watch twenty wedding episodes knowing that they're just gonna divorce. And . . . why the hell did they get divorced?! Because Barney didn't want to move around? Seriously? I mean, out of all the reasons the marriage could have fallen apart - Robin has trust issues, Barney has fidelity issues, both of them have commitment issues - but no, we just get a vague "This isn't working anymore" and then bam, they're divorced. What issues were they even having? That Robin was working and Barney was bored? One of the reasons I liked them together was that they were both pretty independent. They don't need each other to be around all the time, so Robin would be able to pursue her career and Barney could devote his life to being as awesome as possible. Maybe it would've been more palatable if they'd gotten married in the first episode of the season, and the rest of the season showcased the issues they were having, maybe using flash-forwards again. You know, like a couple episodes ago, when they made it seem like Robin and Barney had had a child, then revealed that they were hungover and in the wrong room after a clearly good night, making it seem like their marriage was continuing well. Haha, just joking! They broke up five minutes later.
And finally: Barney. Character development? What character development? Nah, after breaking up with Robin for no explicitly stated reason, he becomes exactly the same person he was back in season one, except older, sadder, and more pathetic. Oh, but now he's got a baby with a girl whose name he still doesn't know. Who is the mother? How are they handling it? What exactly are Barney's responsibilities? Who knows? After four seasons worth of character development, Barney STILL couldn't suck it up and be a husband to the woman he loved, am I supposed to believe he's going to suck it up and be a father? Given this episode, I'm forced to assume that in a couple of years when the baby is older, he's gonna vanish.
Argh. Everything in this episode was a complete surprise to me, and not in the good way.
Okay, I'll play devil's advocate and say I liked the ending. It certainly wasn't amazing but i would have liked it way less if they stuck with the "your mother was the one person meant for me because destiny" thing which was the way Ted KEPT telling the story. It kind of annoys me how this goes against what he told his kids for years but I still like it better...
I guess maybe the lesson is not Ted and Robin were meant for each other but... well, they work, and the thing is, they do. Kind of. Well enough. Better than being alone? When they broke up in season ??? they were at antirely different points in their lives and they have changed since then and... well, I think it's okay how they turned the ending around. Or maybe I'm just too happy they didn't go the other way.
Don't get me wrong, there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't work, like Barney being cured of whatever mental illness he has because he has a child but.... eh, it could have been worse, in my opinion. Better than I hoped at least.
Cizak
2014-04-01, 03:05 PM
Well we knew her first name since the episode where Ted met the stripper who's name was Tracy and he pretended that was the mother to the kids (which was WAY back). The kids thought he might have been telling the truth (after their surprised "what?") which implied that the stripper had to have the same name as the mother (else the kids would know it wasn't her). I'm actually surprised they kept that consistent. They were generally good with continuity over the seasons though.
I never realised that, and it's pretty clever, but they do make an effort to never adress her by her name until the last three minutes.
That's a really good point. I can't remember if I noticed that at the time, or if anyone other than you remembers it (kudos!) but it makes perfect sense in retrospect. Realistically I imagine they will have come up with her name at the same time as the other characters (stuff like their initials being the same makes sense when you look at the umbrella and consider Ted is absolutely the sort of person to put his initials on things) so that's some epic foreshadowing there.
They clearly knew what was going on at the start since apparently that scene with the kids at the end was filmed back in 2006 or whenever the series started. As for the name thing, it was a random coincidence since I had JUST seen that episode on re-runs the other day, which made me dig into it after the finale aired and I thought it sounded familiar.
Mystic Muse
2014-04-01, 04:14 PM
...Didn't the first episode outright say that Robin is their AUNT not their stepmother or whatever? :smallconfused:
WalkingTarget
2014-04-01, 04:29 PM
...Didn't the first episode outright say that Robin is their AUNT not their stepmother or whatever? :smallconfused:
"Aunt" in the meaning of "close family friend", not "parent's sibling". I'm friends with a family that refers to me as "Uncle [WalkingTarget]" despite having no actual family ties to them.
Even with that being said, at the time he called her "Aunt Robin", she is still not their stepmother as he doesn't get back together with her until after his story ends.
As for the Ted and Robin pairing now considering the history of them not being a good match, I always thought that the reason they didn't work was because he wanted kids and she wanted her globetrotting career - at the end of the show they both have already passed that (he has his kids and I would assume that she's not traveling as much considering the number of dogs she owns). I'm not totally sold, but it's something to consider.
...Didn't the first episode outright say that Robin is their AUNT not their stepmother or whatever? :smallconfused:
Because she isn't their stepmother and he only just told them he wanted to date her again? :smallconfused:
Mystic Muse
2014-04-01, 04:36 PM
Because she isn't their stepmother and he only just told them he wanted to date her again? :smallconfused:
Been a long time since I saw it. My mistake.
And I knew she wasn't a relative, but I thought it was a hole in this ending, but apparently it's not. I haven't actually seen the ending episode.
"As for the Ted and Robin pairing now considering the history of them not being a good match, I always thought that the reason they didn't work was because he wanted kids and she wanted her globetrotting career - at the end of the show they both have already passed that (he has his kids and I would assume that she's not traveling as much considering the number of dogs she owns). I'm not totally sold, but it's something to consider.
Given the fact that she's keeping five big-ass dogs in a little apartment, she doesn't strike me as the sort of person who'd consider how much she's around to take care of them anyway. (Poor dogs. Get those guys a yard, woman!)
On the scale of The Sopranos finale to Newhart finale, HIMYM is definitely leaning towards The Sopranos finale among the fandom.
SaintRidley
2014-04-01, 07:34 PM
This ending would have been serviceable if the episode had been given room to breathe. If we had gotten Barney and Robin's wedding at the end of season 8 and ended that episode with Ted spotting Tracy on the train platform, that would have let us get a season's worth of development to see them get together, to watch Barney and Robin fall apart, and everything.
By cramming fifteen years into forty minutes they killed all chance of the finale working narratively. Barney and Robin kiss and are married. Less than ten minutes later, in the same episode, they're divorced. We meet Tracy and learn her name (If I'm the kids I'm probably zoning out when he brings up the stripper named Tracy and suddenly brought back in by him saying "And that's how I met your mother," missing the name entirely) and then six seconds later she's dead. And then six seconds after that the kids say "Go bang Aunt Robin!" It's horrible, horrible writing, made even worse by the fact that they had to dismantle all the character development to make it happen (just last episode we had Ted finally shut the door fully on Robin by giving Barney the locket!) because they felt beholden to the ending they wrote seven years ago.
The episode is 100% a giant middle finger to narrative, characterization, and viewers. I just finished watching Dexter this afternoon, and that finale was bad, punctuated by occasional points of mediocrity, but it managed to somewhat manage coherence. I'm much more annoyed at this finale than Dexter's.
ben-zayb
2014-04-01, 07:39 PM
Maybe the ending would have been different had the finale not been shot at the beginning? I don't know. The Ted-Robin endgame might not be a bad conclusion, but that will depend on how they got from Pilot->Last Forever. With the way the characters/relationships developed from Season 1 to 9, which is for the most part is the theme of moving on past the Ted-Robin romance, it is one of the "Bookend" type ending that just doesn't fit. *shrugs*
Of course, there are some fans who just want some sort of ending like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0caCEG1nH3E), so yeah. It's simple and straight to the point, yes, but being predictable doesn't necessarily mean being badly written.
/2cp
Helanna
2014-04-01, 07:57 PM
Maybe the ending would have been different had the finale not been shot at the beginning? I don't know. The Ted-Robin endgame might not be a bad conclusion, but that will depend on how they got from Pilot->Last Forever. With the way the characters/relationships developed from Season 1 to 9, which is for the most part is the theme of moving on past the Ted-Robin romance, it is one of the "Bookend" type ending that just doesn't fit. *shrugs*
Of course, there are some fans who just want some sort of ending like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0caCEG1nH3E), so yeah. It's simple and straight to the point, yes, but being predictable doesn't necessarily mean being badly written.
/2cp
I'm pretending pretty hard that that was the ending. Predictable, yes, but it feels to me like it fits the show and the characters a lot better. They were all set to wrap everything up nice and neatly, a happy, funny ending to a happy, funny show, and then they threw in a bunch of enormous curveballs at literally the last minute. SaintRidley's analysis of the pacing was pretty spot-on. I just . . . why would you spend nine years teasing a relationship before finally apparently dismantling it for good . . . and then tear everything down so you can set it back up again in literally the last 20 minutes of the show?
Aedilred
2014-04-02, 03:37 AM
On the scale of The Sopranos finale to Newhart finale, HIMYM is definitely leaning towards The Sopranos finale among the fandom.
After the surprise wore off, I actually rather liked the ending to The Sopranos. With HIMYM, the more I think about the ending, the more I think it was terrible.
ben-zayb
2014-04-02, 05:37 AM
There's an alternate finale episode floating in Vimeo that's actually quite smoothly done (with cuts and what not), for those who were disappointed.:smallwink:
Honestly if they had taken the scene where he met the mother at the train station with the umbrella banter, tacked it onto the end of the second last episode (like they did with the proposal scene) and maybe added a bit of an end with the Children, it would have worked MUCH better.
Wow.
Okay, so, they had an easy job here. Give us a Fluffy ending where everybody gets married and lives happily ever after. Hugs all around.
And they screwed it up. They screwed it up so bad.
Instead of a heartfelt farewell, we got a forty-four minute long disconnected story designed to undo years of character development and work so they could justify the pre-set ending.
This really only worked if you took the central premise of the show to be "Robin and Ted MUST BE TOGETHER", and even then it was kind of awkward. It wasn't funny, it wasn't fun or poignant, or anything.
This SHOULD have been the big, fluffy episode of HOW TED MET THE MOTHER. And it could have been, that umbrella scene was wonderful. Then, over the course of forty four minutes, they managed to make me not care anymore.
Which I guess was their intent. Make us not care about Barney and Robin so we wouldn't feel bad about them getting divorced. At the end I didn't care about anybody in the show.
After the surprise wore off, I actually rather liked the ending to The Sopranos. With HIMYM, the more I think about the ending, the more I think it was terrible.
I hadn't watched The Sopranos myself. It's more a comment on general fandom reaction, here and elsewhere. The finale is getting panned hard.
Aedilred
2014-04-02, 06:34 PM
This really only worked if you took the central premise of the show to be "Robin and Ted MUST BE TOGETHER", and even then it was kind of awkward. It wasn't funny, it wasn't fun or poignant, or anything.
Yeah. I think this might have worked, say... two seasons ago. Maybe three. Or if the last couple of seasons had gone in a different direction. But it looks like they, completely literally, lost the plot. I don't know whether they kept getting renewed and felt the need to extend the story beyond where they should have wrapped up, or whether they simultaneously over- and under- estimated the amount of time it would take to tell the story of both the wedding and Tracy's death and Ted's moving on, but they absolutely butchered it.
Obviously, they were locked into this ending because it's what they filmed at the start of the show, and they couldn't film a new one because the actors playing the children would have aged too far. Maybe the tacked-on feel we got from it here is because the writers came to hate it as much as we do. But even if that were the case they could have taken a bit more of a run-up at it, rather than just bunging it on the end, and it doesn't necessitate the downright awful way they unravelled all the character development (most notably with Barney).
Really, the sensible thing to have done would have been to film a couple of alternative endings, in case they later wrote themselves into a corner or events meant they had to change it. The children are in about five minutes of footage across the whole sixty-plus hours of the show; filming a couple more two-minute scenes wouldn't have killed anyone.
I hadn't watched The Sopranos myself. It's more a comment on general fandom reaction, here and elsewhere. The finale is getting panned hard.
Fair enough. (The Sopranos is good, though, if you get the chance to watch it :smallwink:)
Cikomyr
2014-04-03, 12:59 AM
What really killed me is the Mother's death in a throwaway line. It was cheap. It was rushed. It was clumsy. I feel horrible thinking about it, I just want to hug my girlfriend and be with her when I think of it, but it's nowhere given the proper amount of respect.
I mean... just think of the ending of "Vesuvius", with the Mother saying "What mother doesn't attend her own daughter's wedding?", and you just see Ted starting to tear up from the very core. THAT was a great moment. THAT was properly made. THAT showed the degree of respect such a serious storypoint deserved.
Hell. If you were going to kill off the Mother, YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN US MORE CLUES. YOU SHOULD HAVE STARTED ADDRESSING THE SITUATION EARLIER.
The entire, and I do mean, the ENTIRE ****ING FINALE, is one big "Putting the final block on top of our 100-stories domino block, and kick it after 5 seconds).
- Barney and Robin FINALLY become honest, and they marry after being true to their feelings --> Nop. Divorce
- Ted FINALLY meets the love of his life, the woman who could share her life and settle --> Nop. She dies
- Marshall FINALLY opens up to Lily about his dream job, what he wants in life --> Nop. He toiled for 5 ****ing years in another corporate job.
- Barney FINALLY have shown to leave his past behind. To have solved his dad-abandonment issue. To have becomed tired of one-night stand. HE BURNED THE PLAYBOOK. HE ALLOWED IT TO GET BLOWN UP. --> Nop. He got back to it.
- After one big season where we are lead to believe that everybody will break up, but actually end up remaining one tight group of friends --> NOP. They do drift appart.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?! CAN'T YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU PAINSTAINKINGLY STRUGGLED TO ACHIEVED? WHY DO YOU DESTROY THE BEAUTY THAT YOU CREATED?!?! :smallfurious:
And by the way, the link up-there is dead because of copyright infringement. Can someone tell me a synopsis of the "other ending"?
And by the way, the link up-there is dead because of copyright infringement. Can someone tell me a synopsis of the "other ending"?
Alternative Source (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiLV6y1ufl8)
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?! CAN'T YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU PAINSTAINKINGLY STRUGGLED TO ACHIEVED? WHY DO YOU DESTROY THE BEAUTY THAT YOU CREATED?!?! :smallfurious:
Because life isn't beauty? :smalltongue: (implying HIMYM ever was trying to reflect real life... well, they kind of did, I guess)
Cikomyr
2014-04-03, 07:05 AM
Thanks to Ben-zayb and the poster above.
Now I can stop crying inside. And just be freakkin' happy for everyone involved. Be freakkin' happy for the damn 9 seasons of the show.
I remembered that, in an earlier episode ( I looked it up, Double Date in season 5), Marshall mentions how, in order to fantasize about women besides Lilly he is forced to first imagine an elaborate scenario in which Lilly dies, and then he runs into that woman again after a socially acceptable period of time.
Helanna
2014-04-03, 07:35 PM
What really killed me is the Mother's death in a throwaway line. It was cheap. It was rushed. It was clumsy. I feel horrible thinking about it, I just want to hug my girlfriend and be with her when I think of it, but it's nowhere given the proper amount of respect.
I mean... just think of the ending of "Vesuvius", with the Mother saying "What mother doesn't attend her own daughter's wedding?", and you just see Ted starting to tear up from the very core. THAT was a great moment. THAT was properly made. THAT showed the degree of respect such a serious storypoint deserved.
Hell. If you were going to kill off the Mother, YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN US MORE CLUES. YOU SHOULD HAVE STARTED ADDRESSING THE SITUATION EARLIER.
The entire, and I do mean, the ENTIRE ****ING FINALE, is one big "Putting the final block on top of our 100-stories domino block, and kick it after 5 seconds).
- Barney and Robin FINALLY become honest, and they marry after being true to their feelings --> Nop. Divorce
- Ted FINALLY meets the love of his life, the woman who could share her life and settle --> Nop. She dies
- Marshall FINALLY opens up to Lily about his dream job, what he wants in life --> Nop. He toiled for 5 ****ing years in another corporate job.
- Barney FINALLY have shown to leave his past behind. To have solved his dad-abandonment issue. To have becomed tired of one-night stand. HE BURNED THE PLAYBOOK. HE ALLOWED IT TO GET BLOWN UP. --> Nop. He got back to it.
- After one big season where we are lead to believe that everybody will break up, but actually end up remaining one tight group of friends --> NOP. They do drift appart.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?! CAN'T YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU PAINSTAINKINGLY STRUGGLED TO ACHIEVED? WHY DO YOU DESTROY THE BEAUTY THAT YOU CREATED?!?! :smallfurious:
And by the way, the link up-there is dead because of copyright infringement. Can someone tell me a synopsis of the "other ending"?
Exactly my biggest problem. Nine years spent leading up to the mother . . . One and a half sentences spent on her death, aaaaaand then we're moving back to Robin. Barney and Robin get set back nine years of character development in ten minutes. And the whole message basically seems to be "Hey, turns out life sucks. Watchya gonna do?" Well, NORMALLY I would watch an episode of HIMYM or the like to cheer me up! Because it's a lighthearted comedy that I don't have to think too hard about! But now when I re-watch it I'll just be thinking "Wow, this all turns out suckish."
Because life isn't beauty? :smalltongue: (implying HIMYM ever was trying to reflect real life... well, they kind of did, I guess)
But the thing is, they could have worked a milder version of this lesson in much, much more smoothly without drastically changing the tone of the show. Okay, show that sometimes life doesn't work out like you imagined. Marshall spends a few more years at a job he hates, sure, but he eventually gets his dream job. Robin, and by extension Barney, are busy and moving around a lot, so maybe they can't make all the biggest moments, and maybe they drift apart from the group a bit, but they don't just up and vanish and never see anyone again. Ted meets the girl of his dreams, but his dream wedding is interrupted with an unplanned pregnancy that they have to deal with, and they end up unmarried for seven years. It happens. And maybe the mother gets cancer or something similar, and that's scary, and it sucks, but . . . you know, you don't have to kill her just for drama/poignancy/to clear the way for another girl. :smallfrown:
Don't expect much sympathy from the show. Josh Radnor knew of the ending 1st season and has commented recently to admitting the show's title is a fake out, and he's always been ok with it. The show's creators have also commented and in a nutshell - so sorry, so sad, thanks for watching. (my words)
I wonder if this will kill syndication reruns? I know I won't be watching.
I'm also now not too keen on wanting to see the "sequel" How I Met Your Dad. If they want any chance of an audience they need to make it clear in the pilot Dad is still alive, healthily living in the house, not divorced from the mom or pending, and is the actual father not step dad.
I wonder if this will kill syndication reruns? I know I won't be watching.
I suspect it'll do fine. Even without the continuity (which the show did very well), the episodes are generally easy to watch and funny in and of themselves. Hardcore fans of the show won't be watching it syndicated anyways, they have the DVDs or the seasons downloaded or whatever.
I'm also now not too keen on wanting to see the "sequel" How I Met Your Dad. If they want any chance of an audience they need to make it clear in the pilot Dad is still alive, healthily living in the house, not divorced from the mom or pending, and is the actual father not step dad.
I assume it'll just be a standard sitcom. If they keep up with continuity and the in jokes like they did for How I Met Your Mother it'll could still be decent.
Despite disliking the ending, I have no problem re-watching (at some point) the show. It was good through most of its 9 year run. I'll just stop watching after the wedding episode and pretend the ending is something else :P
Da Beast
2014-04-04, 03:47 PM
Alright, the finale has been stewing in my head for a few days and I think I'll be happier if I can just put this out there and move on.
The finale made me mad for a lot of reasons, but the absolute worst thing about it I think is that the ending was more cliche than any happy ending could have ever been. How's that? Allow me to explain. I feel that the single most cliched, boring, and obnoxious element of formula tv plotting is to have the one true couple who spend the entire show's run bouncing off one another romantically in an endless courtship before they finally, in the very last episode, get together for realz. Maybe it's a small detail that I'm making too much of, but one of the things I've always loved about HIMYM is that it seemed to promise in the very first episode that that trope would ultimately be subverted. "And that kids, is how I met your Aunt Robin" was a brilliant twist to end the first episode. I'd always trusted this to mean that we'd see Ted and Robin go back and forth for a while but end up somewhere else with the final message being that life gives us ups and downs and sends us places we don't expect to go but if you keep trying in the end you'll have something great. All they had to do was stick with that and they'd have brilliantly subverted TV's most sickeningly tiresome cliche. Instead everything I'd wanted from this show for the past nine years gets thrown out the window and what did they go with instead? The one true couple who had spent the show's entire run bouncing off one another romantically in an endless courtship finally, in the very last episode, get together for realz. There were a lot of problems with the finale, but I think this point in particular has poisoned the show for me so much that I don't even want to go back and rewatch old favorites. Thanks a lot HIMYM, you had a chance to do something brilliant and unique and instead threw it away in favor of the exact same tired ending that every show has used for as long as I can remember.
Aedilred
2014-04-04, 07:09 PM
Don't expect much sympathy from the show. Josh Radnor knew of the ending 1st season and has commented recently to admitting the show's title is a fake out, and he's always been ok with it. The show's creators have also commented and in a nutshell - so sorry, so sad, thanks for watching. (my words)
This is something I see used as a justification for a number of developments and plot twists and the like (i.e. oh this was always the plan) but I'm not sure how it makes them any better. If anything I'd have thought it makes them less excusable. "We've been planning to do this stupid thing for years" doesn't make it not a stupid thing, it makes you stupid for having not recognised how stupid it was long ago.
Overall, I don't mind - inordinately - that they killed Tracy off. I don't mind hugely that Ted and Robin presumably end up together (pace the below). What I do mind is that if that's the story they were going to tell, this was an utterly incompetent way of telling it. Pointing the audience one way for nine years then going "ha ha, April fool" isn't clever, it's just terrible storytelling. What's even worse storytelling than that is cramming so much plot - most of which was undoing years of previous character development - into one forty-minute episode. This isn't a twist like, say, The Usual Suspects or Shutter Island that makes you go "whoah..." or even like Lost where you go "eh, I guess it makes as much sense as it's ever going to". It's just exploitative.
The finale made me mad for a lot of reasons, but the absolute worst thing about it I think is that the ending was more cliche than any happy ending could have ever been. How's that? Allow me to explain. I feel that the single most cliched, boring, and obnoxious element of formula tv plotting is to have the one true couple who spend the entire show's run bouncing off one another romantically in an endless courtship before they finally, in the very last episode, get together for realz... Thanks a lot HIMYM, you had a chance to do something brilliant and unique and instead threw it away in favor of the exact same tired ending that every show has used for as long as I can remember.
Yeah, I do broadly agree. For my part, I don't entirely hate cliche in that respect, and while it's a bit eye-rolly I could have lived with it. What grinds my gears is that they spend so damn long going "look at us, we're not doing the cliche!" right from the first episode and then go ahead and do it anyway. That makes it worse for me than it would have been if they'd had the integrity just to play it straight.
I was never sold on the Barney/Robin relationship, so I wasn't as sad to see it end; I thought the first time they dated did a much better job explaining why they didn't work than any Ted/Robin break-up ever did, and Barney's weird PATRICE!!! thing didn't have anywhere near the romance of Ted making it rain or having French Horn kleptomania. Especially after "Daisy," where Robin's mother lists serious reservations about Barney being like Robin's father, then assuages the fears by saying "Oh, a hugger? He's nothing like your father." The serious problems about which Robin was freaking out are not erased by the fact that Barney is a hugger. In other sitcoms, they probably would have been, but in a show so defined by continuity and by (generally) thinking its concepts through, I think they have to acknowledge that those problems don't just go away because you bury them.
What really killed me is the Mother's death in a throwaway line. It was cheap. It was rushed. It was clumsy.
I disagree. I think the brevity with which the mother's death is addressed is entirely appropriate. Both because I think that sort of vague, elliptical address to a tragedy is fairly common. The kids know exactly what happened to their mother; saying she "got sick" is sufficient and avoids drudging up specific, painful memories. Most people don't like to give the blow-by-blow of a loved one's death every time they mention it, especially to those who already know what happened.
Honestly, aside from a longer explanation straining the framing device, I just don't think it would have been very effective. If you think back on moments that were handled so well in the show's past, they don't have episodes lingering around Marshall's father in a hospital bed, Marshall gets a phone call and, like Ted, explains in a single sentence. The brevity sells the tragedy without wallowing in it or turning it into something maudlin and tawdry.
Hell. If you were going to kill off the Mother, YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN US MORE CLUES. YOU SHOULD HAVE STARTED ADDRESSING THE SITUATION EARLIER.
They gave a surprising number of clues, they just started subtle and grew more obvious as time went on: Ted and Robin's pact to marry if they were single after a certain age is a gun on the mantelpiece, Marshall's respectable-mourning-period sex fantasies, and the mother's extremely conspicuous absence in every flash forward and in the Future Ted narrative itself. Then, the "forty-five minutes or even forty-five seconds" line in "The Time Travelers" was pretty much a dead giveaway.
Given the intricacy of the show, I wouldn't be surprised if the pervasive Ghostbuster allusions that start in the first episode aren't meant to be a kind of hint.
Helanna
2014-04-05, 08:54 PM
Well, for those of us who didn't like it, there may be hope! They're releasing the box set in the fall that will include an alternate ending, (http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/04/04/how-i-met-your-mother-dvd-alternate-ending/) which is supposedly "very different" from what aired.
Also, judging by this tweet (https://twitter.com/CarterBays/status/452217517230927872) they apparently only recently decided which ending to go with. So we might've been really close to the ending we wanted. :smallfrown: And all those people (not here, but other places) saying that we have no right to be disappointed because this was clearly the writer's vision and we need to respect that might wanna think about that.
Aedilred
2014-04-05, 11:13 PM
And all those people (not here, but other places) saying that we have no right to be disappointed because this was clearly the writer's vision and we need to respect that might wanna think about that.
I've always felt that is a ridiculous argument anyway. Sure, I can respect the writer's right to choose the ending he wanted, just as I respect his right to make pretty much any adjustments to the story, writing, etc. That doesn't mean that those choices and decisions were any good.
Da Beast
2014-04-06, 12:00 AM
The writers have every right to end the show how they please, but the fans have just as much right to hate that ending.
I've always felt that is a ridiculous argument anyway. Sure, I can respect the writer's right to choose the ending he wanted, just as I respect his right to make pretty much any adjustments to the story, writing, etc. That doesn't mean that those choices and decisions were any good.
Though I'm an (apparently) outspoken proponent of the ending as written, I agree with this 100%.
I think, though, that it's important to consider why the writers chose the ending they did. In this case, I think it really was perfect. To those who decry it as trite and overdone, I disagree; it made a point from the very first episode of establishing that Robin wasn't "the one," which it could have run with. Only, it did. It didn't argue that Robin was the one, even in the finale; it merely refuted both the traditional sitcom narrative in which Robin was "the one" and the narrative in which there was such a thing. Ted tells the whole story of his decade of bitter heartache and the writers so beautifully trace the mother to paint her as the "love of his life" while keeping Ted's affections for Robin prevalent enough to remind the audience how much he loves her and how well their oft-antithetical personalities complement each other. I think it subverts beautifully both the traditional sitcom "will they or won't they?" model someone else said it endorsed and the "one true love" model ubiquitous to so much of fiction and that spits so gleefully in the face of those who have loved and irrevocably lost.
ChaosArchon
2014-04-06, 05:27 PM
Ok so heres my 2 cents: One I totally called it that he'd actually end up with Robin, although I assumed that the Mother would be divorced rather than killed off but oh well death of the hypotenuse and all that. Two, I feel like a more preferable ending would have been to totally avoid the whole actually meeting the mother ending and done a soparanos style fade to black ending, "and then... i met your mother," and then have the kids lampshade it as a crappy ending and have the mother come in and ask what the kids are all up in arms about. Not fantastic I know, but better than this ending imo :smallmad:
Aedilred
2014-04-06, 06:53 PM
Though I'm an (apparently) outspoken proponent of the ending as written, I agree with this 100%.
I think, though, that it's important to consider why the writers chose the ending they did. In this case, I think it really was perfect. To those who decry it as trite and overdone, I disagree; it made a point from the very first episode of establishing that Robin wasn't "the one," which it could have run with. Only, it did. It didn't argue that Robin was the one, even in the finale; it merely refuted both the traditional sitcom narrative in which Robin was "the one" and the narrative in which there was such a thing.
Well, actually I think the show fails on both counts here. Firstly, there was a "the one" narrative; that was Tracy. Who, as we got to know her this season, turned out to be pretty much the same person as Ted, which was a bit weird, but ok.* That they later killed "the one" off with five minutes to spare doesn't mean they didn't run that plot. But while "the one" is a cliche, I don't think that's specifically the sitcom cliche that people are annoyed about. It's the Ross-and-Rachel narrative; not a situation in which there is a "one", but where you have a couple who are will-they-won't-they for the whole run of the series, have repeated romantic misadventures both with each other and others, including a couple of apparently permanent separations, commitments, marriages etc. and then ultimately get back together in the final episode.
And that's exactly what this was. The will-they-won't-they managed to avoid the cliche for as long as that implication in the first episode held true: that Ted and Robin didn't end up together. That's part of what made the show work; you see Ted torture himself over Robin for so long when we really know that it's a red herring and eventually he'll find happiness with someone else. The finale then completely blows that out of the water and reinstates the cliched ending. It didn't refute the traditional sitcom narrative, it embraced it. That the show was apparently aware of how cliched it was since the very beginning, made a point of telling us it wasn't doing that - and then did it anyway, pretty much tips it into the realm of "cheap stunt".
*Another bit of foreshadowing, I guess: Tracy's ex-boyfriend, who shared at least one characteristic with Ted, who died and she spent years mourning, which Ted would later echo when she died. Not that we saw that. And like I say, just because it was foreshadowed doesn't mean it doesn't suck.
They gave a surprising number of clues, they just started subtle and grew more obvious as time went on: Ted and Robin's pact to marry if they were single after a certain age is a gun on the mantelpiece, Marshall's respectable-mourning-period sex fantasies, and the mother's extremely conspicuous absence in every flash forward and in the Future Ted narrative itself. Then, the "forty-five minutes or even forty-five seconds" line in "The Time Travelers" was pretty much a dead giveaway.
Given the intricacy of the show, I wouldn't be surprised if the pervasive Ghostbuster allusions that start in the first episode aren't meant to be a kind of hint.
They were fairly heavy handed with the idea something bad was happening in the episode this last season with Ted and Tracy at the B&B. She says something like "A mother should always be there for their daughters wedding" and Ted just tears up (implying the mother was already sick then). Same episode is the one where the mother says something to the effect of "I dont want you to be the person who lives through his stories". That was pretty heavy foreshadowing that SOMETHING bad was going to happen to her.
Lorsa
2014-04-07, 11:00 AM
I thought the ending the was cool in a "I didn't see that coming" kind of way. Because I didn't.
I wasn't quite as bothered by it as some people here, but that is mainly because I stopped caring about the show long ago. Sometime at season 7 you realise the show has just been dragging on for too long, at season 8 it become painful and when season 9 said it would ALL take place in a manner of days I just shook my head. To be honest, at this point I'm just glad it's over.
Now, had the show ended a couple of years ago I think this could have been a really cool ending. Had he actually met the mother sometime in season 6 or whenever the yellow umbrella first came up I may have been excited about her but still remembered Ted and Robin well enough for it to work. As it happened, I had already lost faith that this series was ever going to end, or that he would ever meet the girl. Then during this season they really try hard to make you care again, showing how amazing their relationship will end up, how great they go together etc etc. So you start caring about her. Only to find out she died and Ted is still in love with Robin. A relationship you really stopped caring about long ago.
So sure, it was a nice "twist", that the story really wasn't about how Ted met a mother. Unfortunately it is a twist they should have went with 5 seasons ago. That's really the whole problem with HIMYM, it dragged on far longer than it could support itself.
Well, actually I think the show fails on both counts here. Firstly, there was a "the one" narrative; that was Tracy. Who, as we got to know her this season, turned out to be pretty much the same person as Ted, which was a bit weird, but ok.* That they later killed "the one" off with five minutes to spare doesn't mean they didn't run that plot. But while "the one" is a cliche, I don't think that's specifically the sitcom cliche that people are annoyed about. It's the Ross-and-Rachel narrative; not a situation in which there is a "one", but where you have a couple who are will-they-won't-they for the whole run of the series, have repeated romantic misadventures both with each other and others, including a couple of apparently permanent separations, commitments, marriages etc. and then ultimately get back together in the final episode.
And that's exactly what this was. The will-they-won't-they managed to avoid the cliche for as long as that implication in the first episode held true: that Ted and Robin didn't end up together. That's part of what made the show work; you see Ted torture himself over Robin for so long when we really know that it's a red herring and eventually he'll find happiness with someone else. The finale then completely blows that out of the water and reinstates the cliched ending. It didn't refute the traditional sitcom narrative, it embraced it. That the show was apparently aware of how cliched it was since the very beginning, made a point of telling us it wasn't doing that - and then did it anyway, pretty much tips it into the realm of "cheap stunt".
I don't know if something counts as a traditional sitcom narrative because it happened on one sitcom. Sam & Diane don't end up together in the Cheers finale, Niles and Daphne don't take the entire series to get together on Frasier, all of the will-they-or-won't-they plots on The Office were resolved one way prior to the finale, Joel doesn't return to be with Maggie in the finale of Northern Exposure, Kevin and Winnie never get together in The Wonder Years, and Tony and Angela were together for the final half-season of Who's the Boss. I would argue even Eric and Donna's reconciliation on That '70s Show's finale doesn't count, since their being in a relationship was basically the status quo, with them only being separated for two relatively brief story arcs; Fez and Jackie's will-they-or-won't they started in the final season.
I really actually can't think of another example besides Friends of having a will-they-or-won't-they plot run the entire course of the series only to be resolved in the finale with them getting together.
I would argue the entire point of him going to Robin is that the mother wasn't "The One," no matter how much Ted build her up to be; if she were "The One," there would be no-one else after her, no-matter what. If a characters loses "The One," they mourn him or her for the rest of their life.
Cikomyr
2014-04-07, 02:17 PM
I was never sold on the Barney/Robin relationship, so I wasn't as sad to see it end; I thought the first time they dated did a much better job explaining why they didn't work than any Ted/Robin break-up ever did, and Barney's weird PATRICE!!! thing didn't have anywhere near the romance of Ted making it rain or having French Horn kleptomania. Especially after "Daisy," where Robin's mother lists serious reservations about Barney being like Robin's father, then assuages the fears by saying "Oh, a hugger? He's nothing like your father." The serious problems about which Robin was freaking out are not erased by the fact that Barney is a hugger. In other sitcoms, they probably would have been, but in a show so defined by continuity and by (generally) thinking its concepts through, I think they have to acknowledge that those problems don't just go away because you bury them.
And it would have been FINE if we hadn't spent the next 4 seasons to actually develop both Robin and Barney as character to see them evolve past the flaws that made them crash and burn the first time.
Barney actually managed to deal with his daddy issues. He started becoming a trusting man who actually wanted to settle down. He fell in love three times, and was ready to actually commit and MAKE IT WORK. He had trouble along the way; for sure; but he still managed to build himself into an overall BETTER PERSON.
Same with Robin, who had to learn to trust her better half. To actually commit for them, and not just remain aloof and on her own. She did so with Don and Kevin, and while she was hurt in the process, she actually was ready to commit to a true pair relationship. Ted/Robin was obvious that neither was getting what he genuinely wanted out of the deal; just look at the episode when they considered living together.
And after four years of painstaking character development (which I loved every minute of the way). It was all down the drain. No, after all. Barney is still a womanizer and Robin is still unwilling to compromise and commit.
Olinser
2014-04-07, 02:41 PM
Allegedly the DVD will include an alternate ending.
http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/145745/Alternate-Ending-For-How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Finale-To-Be-Released (http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/145745/Alternate-Ending-For-How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Finale-To-Be-Released)
I'm going to be blunt. That's a terrible, horrible, idiotic idea.
Now, I'm not a big fan of the ending, for reasons everybody else has already stated. Mainly because it basically takes the last 2-3 seasons of the show and dumpsters them in a poorly, hastily done, 'well it didn't work out' exposition, and then reneges on the entire premise of the show and reverting to the standard, "LOL they end up together." It turns out Tracy was just a disposable prop to deliver kids to Ted so he didn't have to worry about Robin not wanting kids.
To sum up my problems with it in one statement: it felt rushed. It felt like the ending to a show that suddenly got told they weren't being renewed next year, and had to end it fast and try to wrap up everything. Except that didn't happen, they knew this was the last season, they had plenty of time to end the show well. That seems to be the problem most people have as well. I could accept the final Ted+Robin pairing, the mother's death, or the Robin+Barney divorce, but you have to BUILD TO IT, not just suddenly announce in the last part of the last episode, "Lol they got divorced and she died."
I didn't like it, but good God, you made an ending, stick to it!
Putting in an alternate ending is essentially admitting that you screwed up and made a ****ty finale.
Except Robin and Ted also developed since they broke up, over even more time, and their break ups were much less "crash and burn" endings than Barney and Robin's. Ted and Robin broke up because Robin was horrified at the sight of an engagement ring; as you said, Robin became much more open to the idea of commitment as the series went on. After that, they never really got back together, mostly because the timing never quite lined up. Sometimes Ted pushes aside his feelings for her because she's seeing someone else (Don and Barney) and other times Robin pushes her feelings for him aside because he's seeing someone else (Stella). Robin is no longer averse to commitment and neither is in a serious relationship, so I don't see why the relationship wouldn't work. Unlike Barney, Ted will be able to tolerate Robin's long absences both because Ted is much more able to tolerate loneliness than Barney and because he has his kids.
Moreover, I don't think that just because Barney made himself into a better person, he fixed everything about himself, and I don't think their marriage ended because he was a bad person; plenty of marriages between healthy, upstanding people end because of work and travel, which put a strain on any relationship. I think Barney's relapse after the divorce makes perfect sense; his daddy issues were a part of his womanizing, but they were never the whole picture. Barney womanizes to fill an emptiness in his heart, to assuage the fear that he is alone and unloved. Earlier, his daddy issues were a road-block to feeling complete even in a loving, committed relationship, and resolving that what allowed him to stay with Robin the second time. However, when the marriage breaks up for totally reasonable circumstances in which normal marriages all the time, it's not hard to see why he would fall back to the old habits he developed to fight off loneliness. As we see towards the end of the finale, having a daughter of his own not only gives his life the meaning it was lacking before, but forces him to re-examine his treatment of women in a way he never did before.
I don't see the big deal about releasing alternate endings on DVD. Lots of things include alternate endings. Especially in the case of a controversial or unpopular ending, it's a phenomenal way to sell DVDs in an age when so many people have things like Netflix.
Aedilred
2014-04-07, 03:42 PM
I don't know if something counts as a traditional sitcom narrative because it happened on one sitcom. Sam & Diane don't end up together in the Cheers finale, Niles and Daphne don't take the entire series to get together on Frasier, all of the will-they-or-won't-they plots on The Office were resolved one way prior to the finale, Joel doesn't return to be with Maggie in the finale of Northern Exposure, Kevin and Winnie never get together in The Wonder Years, and Tony and Angela were together for the final half-season of Who's the Boss. I would argue even Eric and Donna's reconciliation on That '70s Show's finale doesn't count, since their being in a relationship was basically the status quo, with them only being separated for two relatively brief story arcs; Fez and Jackie's will-they-or-won't they started in the final season.
I really actually can't think of another example besides Friends of having a will-they-or-won't-they plot run the entire course of the series only to be resolved in the finale with them getting together.
Well, TVTropes has the list (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillTheyOrWontThey). Maybe the "season finale" is a bit far for some, but if you go for "final season" there are loads. Ross and Rachel is just the best-known example.
(And in the original The Office, the major will-they-won't-they was resolved in the closing seconds of the final episode. I suspect the only reason the American remake dealt with it earlier is because it was so much longer they needed new plots).
I absolutely think HIMYM qualifies, and it gets negative marks from me for trying to con us into thinking it wasn't.
I don't see the big deal about releasing alternate endings on DVD. Lots of things include alternate endings. Especially in the case of a controversial or unpopular ending, it's a phenomenal way to sell DVDs in an age when so many people have things like Netflix.
Lots of things do it; that doesn't mean it's a good idea. In fact, it removes even the super-flimsy "we were going to do this all along" defence, and moves it into the realm of "we chose this over the alternatives because we have no idea how to structure a story". Although, to be fair, the alternatives might be worse.
Dienekes
2014-04-07, 04:03 PM
Putting in an alternate ending is essentially admitting that you screwed up and made a ****ty finale.
I'm failing to see how admitting you made a mistake is a bad thing. In a comparable situation, I was actually quite glad Bioware admitted they screwed up with the ME3 finale, and made a better one. Though it still did have problems.
Well, TVTropes has the list (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillTheyOrWontThey). Maybe the "season finale" is a bit far for some, but if you go for "final season" there are loads. Ross and Rachel is just the best-known example.
Outside of Scrubs and The Nanny, I think I mentioned every sitcom on that list and why it didn't fit the model you proposed. A significant number of them end in "they won't," or "they do and it doesn't work out," so How I Met Your Mother would be following the trope even if they didn't get together in the finale. Moreover, the vast majority are smaller arcs within the major plot of the show, so, Ted and Robin's first season plot would still qualify regardless of everything that came after.
(And in the original The Office, the major will-they-won't-they was resolved in the closing seconds of the final episode. I suspect the only reason the American remake dealt with it earlier is because it was so much longer they needed new plots).
Yeah, but it was only a season long, which muddies the water somewhat; at that point, something lasting the whole run of the series carries a totally different weight.
I absolutely think HIMYM qualifies, and it gets negative marks from me for trying to con us into thinking it wasn't.
As I said, it would qualify as "will they or won't they" regardless of the ending of the finale, and never tried to con us about Ted and Robin having an on-again-off-again relationship. Either the finale has no effect on whether or not it fits the trope you're talking about or the trope you're talking about isn't a ubiquitous sitcom cliché, it's a plot from like one, maybe two other shows. In either case, I just don't think the criticism holds water.
Lots of things do it; that doesn't mean it's a good idea. In fact, it removes even the super-flimsy "we were going to do this all along" defence, and moves it into the realm of "we chose this over the alternatives because we have no idea how to structure a story". Although, to be fair, the alternatives might be worse.
I'm sure the DVD sales from the things that have would indicate that, at least from some perspectives, it's at the very least an idea that's worth a shot. Creatively, I don't think it's a good or bad decision, really. I've yet to see anyone say they liked it, but would dislike it had it not been the plan all along, so I think the "defense" is irrelevant.
ben-zayb
2014-04-07, 04:53 PM
Do the alternate endings have new scenes? Because if I got it right, they're practically just re-editing the old ones ala Fan Video, only official.
Aedilred
2014-04-08, 04:30 AM
Yeah, but it was only a season long, which muddies the water somewhat; at that point, something lasting the whole run of the series carries a totally different weight.
Two "seasons", arguably three, since the specials were broadcast separately from the second. The "season" thing here doesn't usually work in the same way, though.
I'm sure the DVD sales from the things that have would indicate that, at least from some perspectives, it's at the very least an idea that's worth a shot. Creatively, I don't think it's a good or bad decision, really. I've yet to see anyone say they liked it, but would dislike it had it not been the plan all along, so I think the "defense" is irrelevant.
Well, I think it's irrelevant too, but it was raised earlier in the thread as what the creators/cast thought about it.
Pheldagriff
2014-04-08, 04:51 AM
I just had an epiphany. They deliberately made us hate the ending so we can get over the show and not ask for more "HIMYM". Now most of us are fed up and done with it and they are free to do new stuff.
It still is "unwisely pissing off the fanbase", though.
ben-zayb
2014-04-08, 05:18 AM
I just had an epiphany. They deliberately made us hate the ending so we can get over the show and not ask for more "HIMYM". Now most of us are fed up and done with it and they are free to do new stuff.
It still is "unwisely pissing off the fanbase", though.Dunno about that. Plenty of people I know personally wanted the show to end so bad. I have to admit, plenty of season 7-9 eps didn't have that level of comedy that I enjoyed in prior seasons.
Eight was the only season that I recall outright not enjoying. I think Season 9 managed to get a lot of the show's mojo back, at least enough that the Scheherazade shenanigans of the better episodes ("Gary Blauman" is one of the best half-hours I think the show ever produced, for instance) more than outweighed the dull moments in some of the Marshall's-road-trip B-plots or re-treading over the same thematic ground a little too often in the wedding A-plots. I feel like Season 7 had a lot of pretty shoddy plotting and character work, but at least stayed pretty consistently funny throughout.
Two "seasons", arguably three, since the specials were broadcast separately from the second. The "season" thing here doesn't usually work in the same way, though.
Ah, so it was, my mistake. Since it aired in one "season" when it aired over here, I didn't even think about UK series often being considerably shorter, so I figured the twelve episode run would be one series, rather than two series of six episodes broadcast as one season over here. I don't know if the Christmas special aired during the US run that I saw.
Aedilred
2014-04-08, 08:57 PM
Eight was the only season that I recall outright not enjoying. I think Season 9 managed to get a lot of the show's mojo back, at least enough that the Scheherazade shenanigans of the better episodes ("Gary Blauman" is one of the best half-hours I think the show ever produced, for instance) more than outweighed the dull moments in some of the Marshall's-road-trip B-plots or re-treading over the same thematic ground a little too often in the wedding A-plots. I feel like Season 7 had a lot of pretty shoddy plotting and character work, but at least stayed pretty consistently funny throughout.
Heh, it seems we're doomed to disagree. I felt season 9 was the filler-iest of seasons, which was one of the reasons I was so annoyed at the undue haste in the final episode. And I'd have pegged the Gary Blauman episode as one of the premier examples, actually. I mean, it was ok and ended well, but I didn't think it was a strong enough premise to sustain an entire episode. And that goes for quite a lot of the episodes this season: they were either flimsy, or re-trod older ground. Frankly I'm still not sure what the point of removing Marshal to his own subplot for half the season was. The only real narrative reasons I can see to do it were to separate Marshal and Lily so that a) Ted and Lily got some time to talk in the early episodes, b) Marshal's "betrayal" over Rome would come into play, and c) so that Marshal and Lily could meet Tracy separately. But, especially given that they didn't really do much with the Rome thing while the characters were separated, it could all have been taken care of in four or five episodes, removing almost all the road trip material, that was some of the weakest in the season and heavily featured a character I shouldn't imagine anyone really cared about. And that's just one example. And the No Questions Asked episode itself was grindingly mediocre in stretches (that whole bit with the air ducts and the doves?). Slapsgiving 3 was entirely filler. Bedtime Stories was gimmicky, if impressive, filler. And those are just the most egregious ones.
I'll readily agree that Marshall's separation wasn't really a great narrative decision, even if the road trip had some fun moments. I assumed it was mostly a consequence of scheduling conflicts?
Otherwise, though, I think we're just looking for different things from the show. I loved all the episodes you call "filler" (though I'll agree "No Questions Asked" had its rough patches) and I think it's because I've never been as invested in the overarching plot and narrative arcs of the show as I have its more formalistic graces. The continuity nods and call backs that were re-treading older ground to you were the exact sort of thing I like about the show. Both because I think that gives a feeling of people who have a history and shared an important part of their lives better than the end-of-episode hugging does and because it allows for a lot of rapid-fire gag delivery. After the first couple of seasons, I think I've always had more fun with and got more out of the "filler" episodes than the plot episodes or even, for the most part, the "wham" episodes. I've always liked How I Met Your Mother less for the stories it told than how it told them.
I suspect Marshall's subplot was written in because Jason Segel was busy filming a movie, which will be coming out soon, and couldn't spend full time on set.
Avilan the Grey
2014-04-14, 02:39 AM
Finally watched the two-part trainwreck yesterday.
So. Much. Fail.
1. The Show went on too long for the ending to work.
The ending would have worked anywhere between season 3 and season 6 or so. After that the character developement ran away from the ending, so they had to effectively ruin 4 or 5 years of character developement (the show both showing that Robin and Barney were really good together and that Ted and Robin would never work being the major points here, as well as Barney's own maturing). It just didn't work and they were too lazy to rework the ending to fit the story they had actually created.
2. The setup of the final season is pointless.
What was the point of having the whole final season being an hour by hour countdown to Robin and Barney's wedding and the "meeting of the mother" when the wedding itself turned out to be a minor event (due to the out of character forced divorce above)? The wedding should have been a two-parter either at the very beginning of the season or part of the series finale.
3. The Mother dying was both too cheap and too dramatic.
The idea that she got cancer(?) as a way of getting her "out of the way" is both cheap (Hey look! Now Ted can be with his true love!!!) and too dramatic (She has to DIE! It can't just be a divorce!).
4. Character developement is for loosers.
See point 1. The writers basically ignored the second half of their story, pretending that all characters stopped developing around season 5.
5. "How I settled for your mother".
Indeed, this is how it comes across.
6. I called it.
Way back in season 1. Although I assumed they had divorced and Robin and Ted were already living together with Ted's kids, or at least dating. Then all the character developement happened, so I decided that can't be right...
Edit: The only thing I am unsure of myself: DID Marchal and Lily ever go to Italy? All through the last 2-4 episodes before the finale, this seemed to be the case. But in the finale it seems they never left the old apartment, not even moving to a bigger place in New York.
ben-zayb
2014-04-14, 02:43 AM
snipWelcome to the club!:smallbiggrin:
Avilan the Grey
2014-04-14, 02:57 AM
Welcome to the club!:smallbiggrin:
Not too many shows jumps the shark in it's own final episode...
Edit: at least there will be an alternate ending on the DVD. :smalltongue:
Pendulous
2014-04-14, 03:07 AM
One thing that I think DOES work is the fact that Tracy's death gives a reason for Ted to even sit down and tell the story in the first place. Even Ted I don't think would sit his kids down for so long and tell a story about how he met their mother if she was still alive, and that emotion wasn't there. It makes sense for her to be dead, because it could be an emotional "let's reminisce about your dead mother". That is, assuming after six years, they could still do that.
Another thing is, it gets a little annoying to watch TV series after TV series, and have the main male and female protagonist end up together. Like it's already preprogrammed from the start. In Friends, four of the six end up together. In Scrubs, JD and Elliot. It was nice to see the idea that it wasn't so obvious who the couple was. It could have been nice just to avert a trope like that, not just for entertainment factor.
But yes, it was bad storytelling overall. Everything was rushed. Considering that the first scene in Barney's wedding was shown several seasons ago, it's really bad they couldn't fit the whole story into what basically becomes a limitless amount of time.
Avilan the Grey
2014-04-14, 03:20 AM
It was only rushed because they focused way too much on that stupid wedding for a whole season, when they could have developed the relationship with the Mother.
Seriously, the reason why the show comes off so completely creepy is because even though if you check the timeline, Ted and his "true love" spend 10 years toghether, it is written and cut in such a way that she ends up being a five minutes placeholder for Robin so that Ted and Robin can eat the cake and still save it (by having kids / travel).
If they had paced the season completely different THAT PART of the finale would have worked.
However, they still COMPLETELY IGNORED the Robin / Barney character developement and chemistry by transplanting the season 3 ending on top of season 9. The latest this ending would have worked is if instead of Robin and Barney breaking up their first relationship (fat Barney / Blemish Robin) the ending would have been right there... And honestly I think that was the plan, now when I think about it, but then they got extended and had to keep writing. Instead the ending came crashing on top of Barney / Robin's HAPPY marriage several years later.
As for romance... it depends, for me. Ross and Rachel... Hell yes I wanted them together. Same with Leonard and Penny. Robin and Ted? Hell no! But the difference of course is that HIMYM made it VERY clear they were over eachother, and didn't work, while both Friends and BBT had the whole "Will They Or Won't They" chemistry going.
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