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They ruined HIMYM. Just ruined it.
- Thread starter Raptomex
- Start date
- Status
Pamela Fryman worked on Frasier and HIMYM, possible FRIENDS too.
There's an ep of HIMYM where Robin takes over Marshall's bar that is ripped from a Fraiser ep where Daphne does the same to Frasier.
This is basically how I feel. The ending made me feel dirty for days.
WrenchNinja
Member
I can't even watch reruns of this show without getting angry. The ending was so fucking shitty.
I think Two And A Half Men fans will disagree with you. Glad I was never one of them.
Nah this was worse
So... based on this thread I decided to go back and watch the later seasons (Post season 5). Like others, it felt like one of the only things I could remember clearly from later seasons was that
, and that was surrounded by bad storylines and filler episodes.
Some thoughts:
- I had no idea that
as early as mid-s6. So this means HIMYM was considered bad for approximately a third of it's lifespan. I never realized that before, and that's honestly pretty depressing.
- I still hate the Zoey relationship storyline, which begins with and dominates most of S6. I don't really know why I hate it. Perhaps someone here can explain their reason why? I just found it boring, I guess? It was also one of the relationships where we clearly saw Ted change his stance just for a girl (not wanting to tear down The Arcadian vs wanting to tear down The Arcadian). I also had a problem with two things later-on in the relationship, finding out that
. Weather Ted was explicitly responsible or not, it never sat well with me that he would be ok with that
. Another example is how later-on we were all supposed to feel bad for Ted when
, but he had no real problems
. Overall I think more and more in the later seasons Ted changed his stance too easily to justify getting with a girl; or showed selfishness more often. I really soured on him and started rooting for
instead. Ted didn't seem like the Ted from the earlier seasons at all anymore. The second thing I dislike about Zoey's storyline (I haven't reached this part yet, and I don't clearly remember it), but at some point after having a season of getting used to her, and suposedly starting to like her,
. Talk about flushing away any character development and good will people may have had towards the character.
- There are some good moments mixed-in and around the Zoey storyline. One-off gag episodes, and character building stuff for other characters. Such as Barney's brother James meeting his dad, Robin Sparkles: Beaver Song, The Blitz, Marshall's dad dying, and planting the seeds for Barney eventually meeting his own dad.
"Ted: Wait.. you think that's what she means by baking cookies?
Lilly: Are you kidding? you're in the kitchen, it's getting hot, you start licking stuff off each other's fingers. Before you know it she's bent over the marble island, you're spanking her with a rubber spatula, and she's screaming ''stop Marshall stop'' - but that's just code for HARDER"
Alyson Hannigan will never not be sexy. And I love how the Lilly character is a total freak.
Marshall's dad died
Some thoughts:
- I had no idea that
Marshall's dad dies
- I still hate the Zoey relationship storyline, which begins with and dominates most of S6. I don't really know why I hate it. Perhaps someone here can explain their reason why? I just found it boring, I guess? It was also one of the relationships where we clearly saw Ted change his stance just for a girl (not wanting to tear down The Arcadian vs wanting to tear down The Arcadian). I also had a problem with two things later-on in the relationship, finding out that
Ted essentially broke-up Zoey and the Captain
after Stella leaving him at the alter
Stella's husband made the slanderous film about him
running off with Victoria from her wedding and dating her afterwards.
Barney & Robin
she pulls out the recording of Ted and fucks him in front of GNB's board of directors
- There are some good moments mixed-in and around the Zoey storyline. One-off gag episodes, and character building stuff for other characters. Such as Barney's brother James meeting his dad, Robin Sparkles: Beaver Song, The Blitz, Marshall's dad dying, and planting the seeds for Barney eventually meeting his own dad.
"Ted: Wait.. you think that's what she means by baking cookies?
Lilly: Are you kidding? you're in the kitchen, it's getting hot, you start licking stuff off each other's fingers. Before you know it she's bent over the marble island, you're spanking her with a rubber spatula, and she's screaming ''stop Marshall stop'' - but that's just code for HARDER"
Alyson Hannigan will never not be sexy. And I love how the Lilly character is a total freak.
RumblingRosco
Member
I generally enjoyed most episodes of HIMYM. The final season though, despite having some fun and a few good episodes, really was stupid. The entire season was undone in ten minutes... Making their idea of the whole season being a single weekend pretty awful as a result.
The finale though? I may be the only person on Earth to say this, but I liked it. Fuck the Mother, she was never good enough for Ted anyway.
The finale though? I may be the only person on Earth to say this, but I liked it. Fuck the Mother, she was never good enough for Ted anyway.
Bomber Bob
Banned
Fixed for the finale:
you know what gets me the most? the little cbs logo.
rhophiehalul78
Member
I almost feel good not having the chance to witness any of this show's episode and reading the complaints
So..... did you like it?
WrenchNinja
Member
She was too good for Ted. Ted is a piece of shit.
spookyfish
Member
You are the lucky one. The whole final season was a chore, except for the Mother, who was really likable. Then the finale ruined all of that.
openrob
Member
Season 8 was shit and season 9 was soooooooo stretched out
Combination of those seasons would have been good,
a whole season played out in 3 days?!
Combination of those seasons would have been good,
oh and some actual time spent with the mother. Saying that I think the mother character actually worked, and it had potential not to
JinjoUnchained
Member
We've been over this a million times: the last few seasons were not great and stretching out the whole wedding weekend for season 9 was painful to watch. The ending, however, was fantastic, and redeemed the show. Yes, the original ending, where
. It's not a "betrayal of his character", it frames the whole show in a really interesting way that fits the series' tone perfectly. Turns out HIMYM is really about
That's fucking harsh, but it's much more truthful than "and they all lived happily ever after!" The ending is appropriate because it shows that the story was really
That's why he's talking to the kids in the first place, he's trying to get their approval for what he needs to do next in his life. That's also why so much of the story revolves around Robin, because
It's a beautiful message and ties things up perfectly, when you think about it.
the mother dies after 10 wonderful years with Ted and he decides that he's finally ready to try to move on with his life
struggling to fulfill your dreams, enjoying them for awhile, and then losing them because we all get old and people die.
Ted's way of trying to give himself permission to move on with his life without feeling guilty.
he wants to move on with her after he's finally done mourning for so many years.
It's a beautiful message and ties things up perfectly, when you think about it.
mightynine
Member
Please. The creators shot the final scene with the kids ages ago, and then the show went seasons longer than they expected, and instead of choosing an ending that worked with where the show ended up (i.e. the alternate ending), they shoehorned what they had on the end.
It's like once they were quoted on having that scene shot already, they couldn't dare not use it.
They were screwed after "How Your Mother Met Me" aired, IMO. That episode made everyone fall in love with The Mother, that any Robin scenario would seem silly. Well, that and floating away Robin, the most anvil-y of scenes I've seen.
And yes, after the finale, I can't go back and watch a single episode. I've never had a show leave that bad of a taste in my mouth.
It's like once they were quoted on having that scene shot already, they couldn't dare not use it.
They were screwed after "How Your Mother Met Me" aired, IMO. That episode made everyone fall in love with The Mother, that any Robin scenario would seem silly. Well, that and floating away Robin, the most anvil-y of scenes I've seen.
And yes, after the finale, I can't go back and watch a single episode. I've never had a show leave that bad of a taste in my mouth.
Slangblade
Member
it was a show that had an ending planned from the very first episode on (the filmed the kids reaction to Ted's entire story within the first season)
combine that with the success of the show and them kneading and stretching it out like a pizza dough. We got like ... 4 Ted-Robin relationships and two Barney-Robin relationships. They clearly just included an extra 2 season lap with season 5 and 6 (or 6 and 7), that was never meant to be there in the grand scheme of things.
and they spentthe whole SERIES focused on meeting the mother, only to kill her off OFF-SCREEN
this gif can be applied to how i feel about HIMYM as a series
i'm in the timeline of HIMYM being awful, sadly
Hahaha amazing gif. It fits this perfectly.
You know what is really stupid? They still tried to give the characters regular season-long arcs that usually work because season spans months not a weekend. Christ these characters experience mood swings that would make a baboon with a severe bipolar disorder blush.
OrlanisWorks
Banned
As much as I like your explanation of this, the ending will still be considered shit by me. It doesn't matter if it can make sense logically, because it felt rushed and stretched at the same exact time.
The after taste is still there.
Septimus Prime
Member
How I Met Your Mother
HIMYM
Doesn't Matter Because It Was Always About Aunt Robin. Haha. Fuck You, Kids.
HIMYM
DMBIWAAARHFYK
E the Shaggy
Junior Member
Zoey's pretty much universally hated as she's a terrible TERRIBLE character. She doesn't have any redeeming qualities and the storyline she introduced, the Arcadian, was boring as fuck and was another time filler as the writers stretched seasons out to mind boggling proportions.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
The show started off pretty well and then fairly quickly transformed into the stereotypical low intelligence CBS cookie cutter comedy. The writing felt like they ran out of steam somewhere around season 5 and was overall pretty garbage outside of a few really good episodes (The Time Travelers from season 8 was great).
Neuromancer
Member
Terrible ending. I'm not going to say too much about it but Jason Segel's proposed ending would have actually been more satisfying.
Raptomex
Member
The show overall wasn't too bad. Everything up to season 7 is pretty good. Season 7 and onward it starts peppering in this drama bullshit and the ending completely ruins everything leading up to it.
Ganzlinger
Member
lmao
But seriously, besides the mother, I think Ted and Victoria would have been perfect. I don't know how Mosby messed that up.
No it isn't, the show establish that Ted and Robin just don't gel together as they have two different outlook in life.
Furthermore it undoes Ted's letting Robin go if he's just going hook up with her because his wife croaked it.
Messed up the first time by chasing after Robin, messed up the second time because he didn't want to marry her... Ted is an idiot.
Ganzlinger
Member
Yeah, more like I can't believe he did that.
Yeah; I feel the same exact way. It's sorta crazy how often they copied the jokes in Friends.
biggersmaller
Banned
I never found it hilarious, but I liked the show enough the first couple of seasons. I watched them all as my wife is a super fan. I eventually began liking it less and less with every "will they or won't they" episode. By the last season the show became a kind of 22 minute torture. My wife and I have an agreement to respect each other's tastes in music/TV/movies and keep criticisms measured and free of ranting. After the finale, I violated that rule. Passionately.
I believe humor is subjective. However, you people make me sick.
I believe humor is subjective. However, you people make me sick.
This. I don't understand why we are supposed to root for him to find that perfect woman to make everything great. He leaves a path of destruction throughout the show because he's a pretty shitty person. And I definitely don't understand any "she's not good enough for Ted" sentiments. What makes Ted so great?
crazyrabbits
Banned
As I recall, the people who were in the OT who unironically liked the ending were a small minority.
The ending shits all over the characterization, plotlines and development that had been built up over the last few seasons. It is terrible, by almost every account.
Ganzlinger
Member
If the writers wanted us to like Ted they failed miserably.
I have friends that became Seinfeld fans more as they got older. Their reasoning made sense. They said as they got older, they experienced more of those social situations depicted in the show and it helped them identify with the situations in Seinfeld more as they aged.
Based on that, I could see why younger people don't like Seinfeld.
I'm torn about the show. I started watching between seasons 6 and 7 (it appeared on my netflix queue); and I fell in love hard through the first six seasons. Then seasons 7, 8 and 9 happened. 9 was redeemed because they wrote and found the perfect mother, 8 was OK but very filler-ish for reasons that were beyond the writers' control, and I wonder how much better the show would have been for the studio (CBS / FOX) negotiating with the actors on time rather than stalling things out till the very end.
The alternate ending redeems the series for me in many ways; and the part that kills me is that you knew the writers had those moments that made the first seaons amazing still in them. Episode 200 is one of the best episodes in the series (How Your Mother Met Me), and the scene where Ted and Tracy meet is a top 10 acted & written moment of the series. But I think the creators got too stuck on sticking with the finale that they wrote at the end of S2 (where such a finale made sense, as the entire fan base was Robin/Ted shippers at the time, because the chemistry between the two was electric). Even to the point where either Carter or Craig tweeted that they had filmed two endings, and they weren't sure which one they wanted to go with.
I think the show ended up being hurt by the S6 reveal (the flash forward to Barney's wedding), and by the general knowledge that the series was going to keep being extended. Part of the reason I think the earlier (S4 and earlier) relationships are so easy to invest in is because even the writers were not sure whether they would end up being the Mother; so they were written with care and thought because it might be Ted's final relationship (the Mothers were planned to be Victoria (S1), Robin? (S2), and Stella (S4) based on renewal or not). Once they had multi-season renewals, they planned more stuff out, but in the process, made the current relationships less meaningful because they didn't have a chance of being the mother.
I also think a couple of little things ended up having massive cascading effects; a) Anders from BSG was scheduled to be the main love interest in S7, but had a scheduling conflict that ended up having them rewrite the entire arc, b) S9 was not signed up for until 18+ episodes of S8 had been filmed, and the creators openly admitted to trying to stall for time until they knew for sure whether this was their final season or not. I think that led to a lot of the "filler" aspect of the episodes, as they were not being written towards an endgame. Had S8 been declared the final season at the beginning (everyone assumed it was because Segel wanted to go into movies); S8 would have felt much tighter as it would have been the stories of S8 and 9 combined into a single season, as well as not invested the viewers into the mother (which might have made the ending more palatable). Segel had basically decided to mail it in after S8, which didn't help either.
I think the ending was jarring because for the first 6+ seasons of the show, the show was about flawed but fundamentally good characters going through life. They did bad things occasionally, and they had their issues that made them human - but you didn't believe they were fundamentally selfish or bad people. I think as the show kept going on, they started to become more bitter (especially Ted), and while that may strike some as realistic; it changed the tone of the show for the worse to many fans. On top of it; as someone who has many platonic female friends, I liked the idea that Ted and Robin ended up at a good healthy friendship point. Also, the Mother being so damn well written and likable pushed a lot of people away from Ted/Robin and wanting Ted/Mother.
The alternate ending redeems the series for me in many ways; and the part that kills me is that you knew the writers had those moments that made the first seaons amazing still in them. Episode 200 is one of the best episodes in the series (How Your Mother Met Me), and the scene where Ted and Tracy meet is a top 10 acted & written moment of the series. But I think the creators got too stuck on sticking with the finale that they wrote at the end of S2 (where such a finale made sense, as the entire fan base was Robin/Ted shippers at the time, because the chemistry between the two was electric). Even to the point where either Carter or Craig tweeted that they had filmed two endings, and they weren't sure which one they wanted to go with.
I think the show ended up being hurt by the S6 reveal (the flash forward to Barney's wedding), and by the general knowledge that the series was going to keep being extended. Part of the reason I think the earlier (S4 and earlier) relationships are so easy to invest in is because even the writers were not sure whether they would end up being the Mother; so they were written with care and thought because it might be Ted's final relationship (the Mothers were planned to be Victoria (S1), Robin? (S2), and Stella (S4) based on renewal or not). Once they had multi-season renewals, they planned more stuff out, but in the process, made the current relationships less meaningful because they didn't have a chance of being the mother.
I also think a couple of little things ended up having massive cascading effects; a) Anders from BSG was scheduled to be the main love interest in S7, but had a scheduling conflict that ended up having them rewrite the entire arc, b) S9 was not signed up for until 18+ episodes of S8 had been filmed, and the creators openly admitted to trying to stall for time until they knew for sure whether this was their final season or not. I think that led to a lot of the "filler" aspect of the episodes, as they were not being written towards an endgame. Had S8 been declared the final season at the beginning (everyone assumed it was because Segel wanted to go into movies); S8 would have felt much tighter as it would have been the stories of S8 and 9 combined into a single season, as well as not invested the viewers into the mother (which might have made the ending more palatable). Segel had basically decided to mail it in after S8, which didn't help either.
I think the ending was jarring because for the first 6+ seasons of the show, the show was about flawed but fundamentally good characters going through life. They did bad things occasionally, and they had their issues that made them human - but you didn't believe they were fundamentally selfish or bad people. I think as the show kept going on, they started to become more bitter (especially Ted), and while that may strike some as realistic; it changed the tone of the show for the worse to many fans. On top of it; as someone who has many platonic female friends, I liked the idea that Ted and Robin ended up at a good healthy friendship point. Also, the Mother being so damn well written and likable pushed a lot of people away from Ted/Robin and wanting Ted/Mother.
JinjoUnchained
Member
The ending was not inconsistent with the characters at all. The ending checked in at different times over a 10+ year period; were you expecting the characters' developments to freeze in time after the big wedding?
They did their best in showing how the characters changed year by year over that long period of time: Barney & Robin once again go through their ups and downs and break up again, Barney again goes back to his womanizing ways for a few years, Robin realizes her dream of being an international reporter, Marshall realizes his dream of being a judge, Lilly realizes her dream of studying overseas, Ted finally gets to live that perfect domestic life he idealized the whole series. How is any of that inconsistent with the characters throughout the show?
I can see the complaint that it might have felt rushed, cramming in so much development over so much time in only one episode. It was pretty jarring to see Barny and Robin's divorce so soon after their wedding in TV time, if not in real time (in real time it took place several years later). So there might be an issue with pacing, I'll grant you that. Perhaps the flash forward could have taken place over 2-3 episodes instead of one. But the resolution was satisfying in that Robin got what she wanted out of her career and Barney finally found the girl who could tie him down: his daughter.
So Barney chases skirts (but with a twist!), Robin is a famous reporter, Marshall is a judge, Lilly studies art in Italy, and Ted gets his dream girl. This is exactly what these characters were talking about from the very beginning of the show. Inconsistent ending, my ass. That's not even talking about the very end and what happens with Ted, but we addressed that earlier. That part is consistent with the characters throughout the show too: since
the whole story revolves around Robin
trying again with Robing after spending several years mourning his wife's death.
Raptomex
Member
I never really thought about it but I guess Ted is a shitty person. Regardless, they absolutely destroyed the greatest and funniest character on the show and that's Barney.
Maybe. I love Seinfeld. It's my favorite show of all time. and I've been watching it since I was 14 and I'm 25 now.
I agree with this. I used to love going back through the old episodes, but the end (and whole final season really) left such a sour taste I don't have any desire to revisit it.
Shame, as I loved the show back in the day.
Shuggananas
Banned
Clearly if you can't get this kind of sarcasm something is wrong with your sense of humour lol
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