Catching up with James Poniewozik's excellent Tuned In blog this morning reminds me of some things about Monday's episode of How I Met Your Mother. Warning: Spoilers follow. If you haven't seen the episode, stop reading here or you'll be forced to parade around on TV in your tighty whities.
The episode ended with Future-Ted telling his kids about how each of the characters quit smoking. I was thinking one of them should have died of cancer, or a heart attack. Because that's why it's important to not smoke, because it'll kill you. Future-Ted didn't have to make a big deal of it, he could have just said, "And you know that your Uncle Barney (or Aunt Robin) never did quit smoking, and it gave him or her a heart attack that killed him or her a few years ago."
Of course, that would explode the premise that all four characters are still fast friends 25 years later.
But I'm not sure I buy that premise--the friendships you have in your 20s are intense and like family, but they fade when you're older, replaced by real family. At least, that's been the case for me. How about you?
HIMYM used this trick several times before, that there's something that the characters have been doing all along, but we as the viewers don't know about it because Future-Ted never told his kids--he either censored it, or he just forgot to say. I think they can only use this trick once or twice, and they may have used it one time too many.
Poniewozik's comments on this episode here: "So teenagers of the future are not shocked by, say, Barney's lying to get women into bed, but they're scandalized by smoking. Good to know."
How I Met Your Mother is a little off this year. I think maybe part of it is that it's like a high-school show. The part of life that show chronicles lasts a few years and is gone. Those characters are going to separate, get married, have kids, and move to the suburbs. They'll see each other a few times a year, but their lives are going to be very different.
they are stretching this show way too much.
no doubt the first part of this season was boring & because of breaks between episodes they are loosing viewers.
Barney is still awesome!
- http://allupto.com
Posted by: cabelguy | February 07, 2010 at 12:46 PM