The Official TV Thread

[bustaheims]

I sort of liked it from an overarching story sense and felt it was true to the characters. I mean, it wasn't especially good in terms of quality but the show itself has been pretty lousy for a couple seasons so I wasn't expecting much in that regard.

That's the thing, though - I don't feel like the ending was true to where the characters were by the end of the series. It was true to who they were early in the show, but not who they became.

 

[Kin]

That's the thing, though - I don't feel like the ending was true to where the characters were by the end of the series. It was true to who they were early in the show, but not who they became.

I suppose the disconnect there, then, is that I don't know that they wrote any meaningful or convincing character growth over the last four years. That isn't to say I like them as much, just that I never thought anything they wrote sold me on anything else.

 

[bustaheims]

I suppose the disconnect there, then, is that I don't know that they wrote any meaningful or convincing character growth over the last four years. That isn't to say I like them as much, just that I never thought anything they wrote sold me on anything else.

I dunno. The one thing I really bought was Ted being over Robin, because, once she and Barney got together for the first time, every time they teased at or attempted to re-united Ted and Robin, it felt forced and unnatural to me. He still loved her, but it didn't feel like a romantic love anymore.

 

[Kin]

I suppose the disconnect there, then, is that I don't know that they wrote any meaningful or convincing character growth over the last four years. That isn't to say I like them as much, just that I never thought anything they wrote sold me on anything else.

I dunno. The one thing I really bought was Ted being over Robin, because, once she and Barney got together for the first time, every time they teased at or attempted to re-united Ted and Robin, it felt forced and unnatural to me. He still loved her, but it didn't feel like a romantic love anymore.

But I suppose, in a way, that's sort of what I mean. Because the show was so bereft of new ideas they went back to that "maybe Ted isn't over Robin" well again and again and gave Ted "closure" each time to the extent that the idea that it continues playing out well into the future strikes me as believable.

 

[Deebo]

I suppose the disconnect there, then, is that I don't know that they wrote any meaningful or convincing character growth over the last four years. That isn't to say I like them as much, just that I never thought anything they wrote sold me on anything else.

I dunno. The one thing I really bought was Ted being over Robin, because, once she and Barney got together for the first time, every time they teased at or attempted to re-united Ted and Robin, it felt forced and unnatural to me. He still loved her, but it didn't feel like a romantic love anymore.

But I suppose, in a way, that's sort of what I mean. Because the show was so bereft of new ideas they went back to that "maybe Ted isn't over Robin" well again and again and gave Ted "closure" each time to the extent that the idea that it continues playing out well into the future strikes me as believable.

I think the issues that were keeping them apart during the show didn't really exist for them in 2030. Robin had seen the world, had a successful career in journalism and Ted had the family he wanted.

In the years after the divorce, we saw that Robin appeared to deeply regret letting Ted get away. While that was only shown to us in a few scenes, it was actually over a period of years. Add in the experience of her own failed marriage and seeing Ted actually fall in love with someone else, she saw what she missed out on.

Ted had moved on a was ready to spend the rest of life with Tracy, but I don't think he ever stopped loving Robin. At that stage in his life, a widower with teenage kids, he was likely quite lonely and it seemed that he was spending quite a bit of time with Robin after the Tracy's death (his kids talked about how they love her). I find it totally believable that the feelings he had for her in the past would resurface.

The presentation did feel a little rushed, but the plot itself makes complete sense to me.

 

[Kin]

The presentation did feel a little rushed, but the plot itself makes complete sense to me.

I've seen this said elsewhere but to me the final episode really just made an argument for how the show should have set the whole season in the future at various points so that the individual happenings had more weight.

 

[Joe S.]

So that HIMYM finale was all kinds of terrible.

Spoilers and such below.


I was talking to my wife about this, and yes, as Nik mentions, the last 2 seasons have been all kinds of lousy, but had they taken all the content of the last 2 episodes, and stretched it out over this entire last season, I really think that the ending would have been much more palatable; instead of wasting 22 episodes on 1 weekend wedding, and then divorce them in episode 23.

Had we had an entire season to get to know the mother, build some kind of relationship with her, see their relationship evolve, THEN find out she gets sick, and then we find out that Ted has been telling this story to his kids because she's passed and the kids never got to know her, then that's an ending people wouldn't be up in arms about.

But basically having a 2 second scene in a hospital where she doesn't even look remotely ill build absolutely no pathos for the character.

And the Robin crap at the end feels the same to me as Hayden Christensen slapped into Return of the Jedi; completely unnecessary and insulting.

It's such a shame, because for the first 5/6 seasons, IMO, this show was brilliant. The fact that a sitcom could stir up as much emotion as this one did I thought was quite original. But man, did they ever just implode the last 2 seasons.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

So that HIMYM finale was all kinds of terrible.

Spoilers and such below.


I was talking to my wife about this, and yes, as Nik mentions, the last 2 seasons have been all kinds of lousy, but had they taken all the content of the last 2 episodes, and stretched it out over this entire last season, I really think that the ending would have been much more palatable; instead of wasting 22 episodes on 1 weekend wedding, and then divorce them in episode 23.

Had we had an entire season to get to know the mother, build some kind of relationship with her, see their relationship evolve, THEN find out she gets sick, and then we find out that Ted has been telling this story to his kids because she's passed and the kids never got to know her, then that's an ending people wouldn't be up in arms about.

But basically having a 2 second scene in a hospital where she doesn't even look remotely ill build absolutely no pathos for the character.

And the Robin crap at the end feels the same to me as Hayden Christensen slapped into Return of the Jedi; completely unnecessary and insulting.

It's such a shame, because for the first 5/6 seasons, IMO, this show was brilliant. The fact that a sitcom could stir up as much emotion as this one did I thought was quite original. But man, did they ever just implode the last 2 seasons.

Yeah basically.  The last few seasons the characters were basically caricatures of their former selves (don't get me started on that dreadfully unfunny yet constantly recurring Robin/Patrice stuff), although I thought the finale was better in that regard.  The ending just came off as so fake to me, and so rushed.  Didn't have any emotional impact whatsoever, and they just tossed aside the mother character who I think most fans of the show really really liked.

 

[Bender]

I think I'm one of the only people on earth who thought HIMYM was one of the most overrated shows in recent memory.

 

[Kin]

It's such a shame, because for the first 5/6 seasons, IMO, this show was brilliant. The fact that a sitcom could stir up as much emotion as this one did I thought was quite original. But man, did they ever just implode the last 2 seasons.

I can't help but think those two things are linked though. Like because it was such a mythology heavy show and we kept getting glimpses of these characters' futures that gave us this connection to them that satisfactorily wrapping up their stories would have meant, you know, giving us 20-30 years worth of character development for five separate characters that stayed true to everything we knew about them to that point. That would be tough to do in a follow-up novel, let alone 40+ minutes of TV.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

This actually does a good job of summing up how I felt about it, better than I ever could hope to, but echoing the gripes of a lot of the fanbase: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/04/01/297675381/oh-mother-an-awful-end-to-a-long-love-story

 

[Kin]

Someone posted this to Uproxx today. It's a fan-edit of the ending to make it closer to what, I'm gathering, some of the angrier fans that Potvin is referring to apparently would have liked to have seen.

http://www.uproxx.com/up/2014/04/a-fan-fixed-the-how-i-met-your-mother-ending-and-made-it-so-much-better/

I don't know. I watch that and think that people wanted an ending straight out of a romantic comedy? I may have been watching a slightly different show.

 

[Joe S.]

That edited ending doesn't really do anything for me. My issue is the miniscule amount of time spent on getting to know the mother.

When season 8 ended with a shot of the mother at the station I honestly thought we'd be spending all of season 9 watching their courtship. Not a bunch of episodes with the ring bear joke.

If I look back at season 9 I feel there were only 3 good episodes; how your mother met me, the one where red lets robin go and Ted and the mothers awkward first date. What do they have in common? They had nothing to do with that terrible wedding weekend.

 

[mc]

Letterman announced he is retiring in 2015

 

[L K]

I sort of liked it from an overarching story sense and felt it was true to the characters. I mean, it wasn't especially good in terms of quality but the show itself has been pretty lousy for a couple seasons so I wasn't expecting much in that regard.

I think it was true to the characters of a 5 season series.  Once the series kept getting renewed and their actors continued to want to come back, I think they needed to change the ending.  Having an end-point in mind is great, but when you significantly extend the time between that plan and when the show actually ends I think you either need to build up to that ending significantly better than they did, or you need to just come up with something original based on where the series has gone.

 

[Kin]

I think it was true to the characters of a 5 season series.  Once the series kept getting renewed and their actors continued to want to come back, I think they needed to change the ending.  Having an end-point in mind is great, but when you significantly extend the time between that plan and when the show actually ends I think you either need to build up to that ending significantly better than they did, or you need to just come up with something original based on where the series has gone.

Oh, I agree completely. If SPOILER ALERT killing the mother and Widower Ted ending up with Divorcee Robin was what they had planned all along then the move was to introduce us to the Mother at least a season ago and let her be a regular/interact with the gang and make us give a darn about her before killing her off of...whatever it was she died of.

But like I sort of say it's hard for me to imagine anyone watching the last few seasons of the show going into the finale thinking "man, I bet we're going to see some funny, poignant, true to the characters we've established writing here".

 

[Tigger]

Digging Hannibal and, of course, Game of Thrones.

 

[Kin]

I don't know if anyone's watching it but I would highly recommend the TV version of Fargo that FX is doing.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I don't know if anyone's watching it but I would highly recommend the TV version of Fargo that FX is doing.

It's getting great reviews, I have all the episodes that have aired downloaded but it seems like every night when I have time to watch something there's a playoff game I'll put on instead. But I'll get to it eventually. I've never seen the movie version of Fargo though, should I watch that first or will it not matter?

 

[Kin]

It's getting great reviews, I have all the episodes that have aired downloaded but it seems like every night when I have time to watch something there's a playoff game I'll put on instead. But I'll get to it eventually. I've never seen the movie version of Fargo though, should I watch that first or will it not matter?

It doesn't really matter. They're not connected at all outside of some vague plot similarities and the general setting. I mean, I think it's a phenomenal movie that deserved all of it's awards and so you should see it but outside of maybe being confused about why a show set in Minnesota is called Fargo there's no real need.