Category Archives: How I Met Your Mother

January 19, 2009 · 11:07 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “Three Days of Snow”

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“Three Days of Snow”

January 19th, 2009

There comes a time in the life of every sitcom that tries to be something different than your traditional sitcom that you stop thinking of its unique qualities as unique and start to view them as cliches, crutches the show uses to pretend that its storylines are something more than they really are. And considering that this is the umpteenth time that I will talk about how charming the show’s use of time in order to disrupt storylines, perhaps this is the time for How I Met Your Mother.

Now is not the time.

What makes “Three Days of Snow” such a strong episode is that the time-twisting trait of sorts was intertwined with the characters who hold this show together, returned to their simplest forms. Lily and Marshall use this three-day storm of the century to re-engage with the innocence of their married days, Ted and Barney try to pick up co-eds and investigate the futility of male fantasies, and Robin is forced to confront her robotic tendencies and perhaps open herself up to some sense of emotional connectivity in the future.

The result is, yes, the very definition of a sitcom episode: characters we know and love put in situations where they get to demonstrate why we love them. But HIMYM continues to shine when it uses these scenarios as a display for a unique comic voice and a unique sitcom structure that’s time is not up by a long shot.

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January 13, 2009 · 1:52 am

How I Met Your Mother – “Benefits”

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“Benefits”

January 12th, 2009

Ted Mosby is a jerk.

This is a fact that, when How I Met Your Mother addresses it, is one of the character’s most entertaining qualities. When Ted is held on a pedestal like the last great defender of romance in today’s young people, though, the show screeches to a halt: unless the result is as charming as “Ten Sessions,” it is inevitable that we will not feel nearly as in love with Ted as he and the show are in love with his view on love and marriage.

But when the show is willing to actively present Ted as a jerk, someone who is doing something that is kind of cruel, kind of mean, and ultimately hurtful towards people he cares about, I like him a lot more in terms of his role on the show. As Ted and Robin enter into a friends with benefits relationship, we know as an audience that this is hurting Barney, who is in love with Robin, and the show is smart to let that period linger in a series of entertaining montages as opposed to swept under the rug to keep our “good guy” from being sullied.

We know from moment one that this is all a monumentally bad idea, but letting it play out in “Benefits” (even if the conclusion could have been, well, more conclusive) gives us a great chance to see these characters in some of their best roles.

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December 16, 2008 · 1:56 am

How I Met Your Mother – “Little Minnesota”

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“Little Minnesota”

December 15th, 2008

For those of you who don’t know, I am from Canada. So is Cobie Smulders, who plays Robin Cherbotsky, who is also from Canada. This has made us the butt of many jokes in the span of How I Met Your Mother’s four seasons. The show has never really strived for accuracy, of course, but its skewering has been quite adept: I had recent HIMYM addict Angie Han send me a YouTube link the other night that she viewed as proof that the 80s hadn’t, in fact, come to Canada until 1993, which I won’t share here because it was actually quite damning for the state of popular music in the mid to late 90s in Canada.

If they had created an image of Canada in the past though, the final episode of HIMYM before its Christmas break proved that they are willing to go one step further. In an episode that would make Baudrillard proud (and by proud, I mean roll over in his grave while proud that he was right all along), Marshall invites a homesick Robin to “Little Minnesota” (aka the Walleye Saloon) a version of Marshall’s home state (which offers similar weather patterns to Canada) where everyone knows your name, everyone laments the Vikings’ loss in the 1999 NFC Championship, and where they believe that Canadians are afraid of the dark.

What followed was an episode that, despite the episode’s other storyline being a simulation of a mediocre sitcom, brought new life to the show’s version of Canada: sure, it’s not the truth, but it’s a well constructed enough exaggeration that I believe the show deserves credit for its-AHHH WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LIGHTS?!

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December 9, 2008 · 3:41 am

How I Met Your Mother – “The Fight”

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“The Fight”

December 8th, 2008

After a season that got off to a bit of a slow start figuring out how to balance the arrival of Stella, and that has been much better in the aftermath of the broken off wedding than leading up to it, “The Fight” continues to demonstrate that the show is back in its sweet spot. Like “The Naked Man” before it, this week’s episode was democractic and monumental: this felt like one of those memories that the group would keep, it involved all of our major characters in some capacity, and it really hit some intriguing comic notes throughout.

The show is still content to play lip service to recurring storylines as opposed to really digging into them, but this feels like the right note for a show reaching its midseason break and heading into the second round metaphorically floating like a butterfly.

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November 25, 2008 · 2:28 am

How I Met Your Mother – “The Naked Man”

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“The Naked Man”

November 24th, 2008

[UPDATE: For those who want a better look at Lily’s list of 50 reasons to have sex, Mo Ryan at the Chicago Tribune has the enormous napkin list. I think my favourite is #39 because of its history between Marshall and Lily and the early Season Two period.]

When adding terms to the HIMYM Lexicon, it is usually Barney who takes the mantle, but “The Naked Man” takes a slightly different approach. For once, it places all of our characters on the same page: they are all students to Mitch The Naked Man’s teacher, and the result is that all of them test out his unorthodox method for their own purposes.

What could have been, as a result, a highly unorganized episode smartly lays low in regards to the show’s central dramas. With Barney and Robin’s love, and Ted’s recent breakup with Stella, payed homage to without dominating the episode, you have a chance for each character to play their comic beat while not becoming overloaded in drama. Yes, ultimately this episode feels quite inconsequential, but it was indulgent in a way HIMYM hasn’t been all season with the cloud of Stella or Major Life Changes hanging in the air.

And in many ways, this episode is the transition point: from this point forward, Ted’s in a new place in his life and perhaps we can find a new turn around the horizon…just as long as Mitch isn’t there when we turn the corner.

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November 18, 2008 · 7:33 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “Woooo!”

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“Woooo!”

November 17th, 2008

Scoring its highest ratings since the season premiere, which were close to its series high levels, How I Met Your Mother has grown from a niche success to a bona fide comedy hit, scoring extremely impressive numbers in key demographics in particular. Whether it is the result of the recent stuntcasting trends, or just based on the show’s undeniable quality, How I Met Your Mother has in the span of only a year gone from a show fighting for its life to a show that CBS will be keeping around as long as possible to allow it to expand into syndication.

When that happens, I don’t really know if “Woooo!” is going to resonate very well as an episode of the series in terms of its broad strokes. While the titular expressions of happiness are, as the episode cleverly shows, veiled cries for help amidst a pool of self-pity, this episode lacks a certain level of depth that could help elevate it. The episode returns to the Barney and Marshall battle for Ted’s best friendship, but after last week delved into the question of parenthood this week we see very little on that level of character building.

Instead, what we get is an office in the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Strip Club in the Letter “N,” and let’s be clear: on that level, this was a very sharp and (when it repeats in syndication) thoroughly entertaining half hour.

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November 11, 2008 · 1:20 am

How I Met Your Mother – “Not a Father’s Day”

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“Not a Father’s Day”

November 10th, 2008

If there was a checklist of HIMYM tropes, this episode tried to tick off every single one of them. You had a new Barney-ism (“The Cheerleader Effect”), a new egotistical celebration of bachelorhood from Barney (the titular “Not a Father’s Day”), Ted and Robin clashing over the value of having children, and our characters facing more realities of being 30+.

It isn’t breaking any new ground, no, but it’s a solid piece of comedy that feels distinctly HIMYM, instead of feeling distinctly like a traditional sitcom as it can sometimes do. There’s a certain pace that “Not a Father’s Day” keeps, helped mostly by Alyson Hannigan’s ability to play drunk with such wonderful abandon and Cobie Smulders being let loose as Robin to a degree that was almost too over the top, which really keeps things moving here: even though this was really a setup episode for two major plot shifts (one involving the living situation at the apartment, the other a life-changing decision for Marshall and Lily), it was a mighty fine concoction while it went down.

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November 5, 2008 · 9:59 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “Happily Ever After”

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“Happily Ever After”

November 3rd, 2008

After reading Alan Sepinwall’s impressions of Scrubs’ upcoming season on ABC (which are very positive, and might convince me to give the show another shot), I remembered something: I had once hoped, wished even, that Sarah Chalke could abandon that comedy for this one, a show where her character of Stella once felt like a breath of fresh air. But, there was no happily ever after for Ted and Stella: once their relationship left its romantic side behind in “Ten Sessions,” the original impact was wearing off and, by the time we got to Stella leaving Ted at the altar we were all ready to more or less throw Stella out the door.

And in one scene in “Happily Ever After,” we get that moment: Ted tears Stella apart for putting him through hell, and for making a huge mistake. It’s a scene that we needed to see, but it’s also a scene that wouldn’t have worked outside of its imaginary context: while we needed Stella to hear what Ted had to say, she has chosen a life that is reunites her daughter with her father, and the series is smart not to exist in a universe where Ted is that self-centered, especially since he has his issues with that as is.

Overall, this week’s episode is one that wasn’t quite as definitively strong as one might hope, using some oddly cliched constructs to eventually make this poignant realizations, complete with some enjoyable comedy from Robin’s Canadian roots along the way. The real question now is, with Stella out of the picture, where the show goes from here on the road to its own…well, you read the title, you know where that cliched transition sentence is going.

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September 29, 2008 · 9:35 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “The Best Burger in New York”

“The Best Burger in New York”

September 29th, 2008

Flashbacks? Check. HIMYM-specific terminology? Check. Self-created Lore? Check. If you’re looking for an episode of How I Met Your Mother that represents the show’s charms in a single half hour, this is perhaps one of the most pure examples. While it sidelines Barney, perhaps the show’s best character, the show remains an ensemble and Marshall (who gets the most focus) was in dire need of a wakeup call in more ways than one.

The search for the best burger in New York sends Marshall back into his past, but the episode follows just a single night in the lives of our five lead characters. With Regis Philbin weaving in and out of the narrative to mild success, and some really charming cyclical storylines, it feels like (more than last week’s premiere) an episode that fits into the show’s canon with ease, if not with pure triumph.

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September 22, 2008 · 9:36 pm

Season Premiere: How I Met Your Mother – “Do I Know You?”

“Do I Know You?”

September 22nd, 2008

There’s a lot of things that we don’t know about Stella – she walked into the series in a guest appearance, returns to make Ted realize the brevity of life, and then all of a sudden at the end of last season she was, potentially, about to become Ted’s fiance. Our limited knowledge of her is what has me convinced that she can’t be the titular Mother – there is just something about the way they met, and the way they are progressing, that makes this feel like one of those emotional rollercoasters that leads Ted to self-awareness and his eventual soul mate.

And the show isn’t pretending, as other shows might, that this is a match made in heaven – the opening episode is all about two relationships, each that has either a lack of information or damaging preconceptions standing in the way of their future. As Ted struggles to get to know Stella, Barney struggles to get over himself in order to show Robin a new Barney. The episode jumps back and forth between the two, connecting these two narrative threads and their importance to the future of the series.

The end result is an episode that never transcends to laugh out loud, that doesn’t feel like a showcase for any one of the show’s elements, but nonetheless represents a good investigation into the insecurities and indulgences of this series. So while the characters might be struggling to find their own footing in this new frontier, this is likely to serve as a foundation of growth and, hopefully, a strong fourth season.

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