i know i'm one of the only people on ilx who watches *how i met your mother* on a regular basis, but did anyone else see the robin sparkles episode? where robin didn't want people to know that she had

this was the first good episode in a while. had almost given up on this show. nhex otm, robin calling ted's dates cheesy and barney being an asshole were the best bits.

oh, and the title the wedding bride was lols.

i liked last week better when ted went to the snooty party. and mexican wrestler ted -vs- robot.

The episodes have been quite good lately to be honest. Not great sure, but they've elicited a number of laughs here and there. Like those scott mentions for example.

Also fun to see the same actress in Big Bang Theory one week and himym the next.

judy greer was so hot

gotta give 'em credit for pulling the old "really? they're gonna kiss now? come on" gag and throwing it immediately back in our faces (much like that fake confession Ted did earlier this season or last year)

Blonde Ted was pretty funny and wasn't an entirely awful look

I have to say I love the doppelgangers. Especially Mustache Marshall.

generally, despite the fact that friends of mine that have babies makes me think i'll lose them in the context i've known them in, i'm okay with that. much worse is the tired old shit that is no doubt coming next season with lily and marshall.

it was a decent episode, all in all, but it hardly saved what has been a pretty terrible season.

blolnde ted.

glad they did away with don, he didn't seem right at all. they need a paul rudd (x3).

its just following the friends formula right? could be way tighter and get it over and done with but instead fill the middle of the show with filler season(s). i personally can't wait to see what they do with dad marshall (imagine it to be the best thing ever) and you know, actually finding the mother/robin actually sorting shit out/what actually happens w/ barney assuming they have a plan.

It's kinda too bad there's so much filler because there are still a lot of really great things in the episodes but the 528th Ted gf that you know he's gonna dump in a few minutes/episodes gets a little boring. Agree that Marshall dad would be awesome but that character is usually quite awesome all the time.

my favorite episode in a while, laughed my ass off through the whole thing

Lily and Marshall are one of the funniest best-written couples on TV, if anyone can not fall prey to predictable pregnancy/baby plots and jokes it's them.

don't understand the 'filler seasons' vs. get it done with idea. it's a U.S. sitcom, they write jokes every week for as long as they can stay on the air. this show has more of an arc and continuity than the average comedy but that's kinda beside the point.

You have to admit there's a bit too much filler. Overall, I don't dislike any season in particular but there are a few episodes that make me cringe just because nothing happens and the jokes aren't good. But they usually get back on the ball quickly and have a few good episodes afterwards. The filler for me is mostly Ted-related. Honestly, that show may be about his quest to look for a wife but he really is the worst character. And watching him go out with yet another girl with whom he'll find fault soon enough is kind of grating after a while. Basically if the show was only them at the bar and doing shit I'd be happy to let it last forever. But every time it veers into Ted's love life, I'm bored and feel like watching something else.

actually finding the mother/robin actually sorting shit out/what actually happens w/ barney assuming they have a plan.

your questions will only lead to more questions

it is the Lost of sitcoms

i have to also say i'm getting bored w/ barney. dude is just downright gross now whereas i'm sure there was a bit of class at one point? maybe?

Well obv, he's on path to completing the transition to lecherous 50yr old hanging outside high schools that he's bound to become.

the 20 (!) minute song at tedmosbyisajerk.com is a future dementia classic.

― Michael F Gill, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 2:58 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

damn i had not heard this before

insane

You have to admit there's a bit too much filler. Overall, I don't dislike any season in particular but there are a few episodes that make me cringe just because nothing happens and the jokes aren't good. But they usually get back on the ball quickly and have a few good episodes afterwards. The filler for me is mostly Ted-related. Honestly, that show may be about his quest to look for a wife but he really is the worst character. And watching him go out with yet another girl with whom he'll find fault soon enough is kind of grating after a while. Basically if the show was only them at the bar and doing shit I'd be happy to let it last forever. But every time it veers into Ted's love life, I'm bored and feel like watching something else.

― Jibe, Wednesday, May 26, 2010 8:48 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this seems like an absolute bizarre and self-defeating way to look at the show. again, i like that it has a little more continuity than the average sitcom and a central 'mystery' to work toward, but this is not X-Files, trying to create some kind of dichotomy between myth arc episodes and monster (bad date) of the week episodes is insane. it's a comedy about 5 friends, lots of silly things happen, one character is the narrator and occasionally frames the episodes in terms of a larger story but it's still an episodic sitcom primarily about jokes and character moments.

"i missed the show this week? i missed last night's episode."

"oh, it was utter bullshit, we learned nothing about the identity of the mother AGAIN and they spent half the episode on Barney doing something silly and the other half on a standalone plot involving Marshall and Lily, i feel like they're stringing me along."

Ha, I wasn't clear at all. I'd be really glad if they just let them goof around for our enjoyment. The thing that annoys me (and keep in mind its really a minor thing, I still watch this show every week) and which I guess is what I consider as filler is that they keep coming back to the mother and oooh, the mother is this week's Ted GF's roommate and ooh, look there goes a yellow umbrella and Ted says "I didn't know it yet, but I crossed your mother while on my way to robots vs wrestler, she herself being on her way to the great muffin specialty shop" or whatever. Basically I kind of dislike Ted (ok, blonde Ted was nice I guess) and when they lay it on thick with the mother-hunt it bores me. Them being at the bar and Barney disguising himself in all kinds of weird get ups, or whatever, or Lily & Marshall making stupid commitments about 5th doppelganger etc is fine by me. all that filler - by which I mean silly tidbits about the mother- is what bothers me more.

yeah, the teases are definitely getting tedious, i totally feel you there. i thought you were saying you wanted MORE of that stuff.

ideally it's something they should only reference every few episodes and only hinge a whole episode on once a season.

i still can't believe that they got out of that stella/marriage thing so gracefully. that would have been the end of most shows. AND they can still use it for laughs like in the ted movie episode. ted has his moments. i don't think he's the worst. i really did love him at that snooty dinner party.

Yeah, I totally want more of Ted at snooty/intellectual events.

ted's pretentious college gf was one of his funnier gfs

ok when i was complaining about filler it wasn't about mother hunting or lol barney does this (although this is starting to bore. the episode w/ his perfect week was terrific tho) but instead TED HAS DATE WITH WOMAN, DUMPS HER BY THE END OF THE EPISODE AND OH BTW IT IS THE SAME EPISODE EVERYTIME YAWN

Yeah the problem is that the show now is that started out as an original take on the bland Friends-style young people in love sitcom cliche, this whole season they seem to have finally given up and gone to that well over and over again. Practically every Barney/Robin episode. The perfect couple isn't actually! Couple friends! Let's all quit smoking! Keeping potential boyfriends/girlfriends "on the hook"! The relationship expert comes in the teach a lesson to the lothario, but the tables are turned on her! Let's get twin beds instead of sleeping in the same one!

HIMYM is often great because they can take these overdone plots and turn them into good episodes with original jokes, but it just hasn't had that magic in general this year...

I don’t really feel like I have that much more to offer with this character. Maybe if we got divorced or something — but that’s not gonna happen. It’s gonna be some iteration of, like, my TV wife opens the fridge, and she’s like, “What happened to the birthday cake?” And I walk in with a little frosting here (points to corner of mouth) like, “What birthday cake?”

this is kinda odd given that them having a kid is a new development?

guess it is frustrating being tied into a show when u could be making movies like franco or rogen

that quote is a total bummer to me since Marshall is maybe my favorite character and I think they've consistently mined him for new LOLs better than probably anyone else on the show. he should be happy the show has a shot at running that long (especially since it was perpetually on the bubble in the early years) and not bitch about a contract he already signed.

btw anyone else watching the Persons Unknown miniseries on NBC? last week a mysterious cab pulled into the mysterious town where the mysterious characters had been mysteriously kidnapped, and the driver was Ranjit, the cabbie from the early seasons of HIMYM, totally cracked me up.

it's kinda odd given that j-segs has by far the most successful movie career of the five. apparently HIMYM takes longer to film than most sitcoms tho, and he is coming off a comparatively slack season (though it improved).

yeah he definitely has the highest profile moviewise but tbrr i feel like that's mostly apatow runoff, don't think he's ever going to have starring vehicles as successful as Rogen or Franco etc.

yeah but fsm was big enough that he should be able to carry on writing whatever he wants maybe?

do have to fill for him though, himym does seem like its been dragging its heels (see our discussions from the past six months) and if they cut out the dull filler episodes it could have been like this 6 season comedy beast or whatever instead of the 4 seasons of greatness and 6 seasons of 'oh so barney gets laid, ted doesn't because he finds something to bitch about with yet another new girl, the girls are underused and marshall slowly turns into a wacky homer simpson'

don't think there's any real chance he'll leave, but if the new Muppet movie becomes a smash, his prospects will only improve

the girls are underused

the other Segel quote from that link is amazing:

“I had two other suggestions [about how the writers should end the series]. One is that they’re dead. The two kids and their father — they’re dead, and they’re in purgatory, and he’s telling the story for eternity. […] And then my other suggestion, which they never used, which I think would be so funny, is — it’s the future, right? I think in one of those scenes, they should open the window, and it should be, like, a postapocalyptic wasteland outside. It should be like I Am Legend. Horrible mutants.”

would love to hear audio of that just to figure out how serious he's being, or if he's making a Lost joke in the first part

lots of stuff has been said about this wont be so hacky and sitcommy this season and thats great but who cares

There will be a third installment in the Robin Sparkles saga; they're trying to get Alan Thicke back for it. It will relive the glory days of the tween-oriented, educational show that Robin Sparkles hosted in Canada -- with her showbiz partner, Glitter. Thomas and Bays are writing a song for Sparkles and Glitter. "We talked about it being a safety warning about thin ice," Thomas said.

There will be a third installment in the Robin Sparkles saga; they're trying to get Alan Thicke back for it. It will relive the glory days of the tween-oriented, educational show that Robin Sparkles hosted in Canada -- with her showbiz partner, Glitter. Thomas and Bays are writing a song for Sparkles and Glitter. "We talked about it being a safety warning about thin ice," Thomas said.

There will be a third installment in the Robin Sparkles saga; they're trying to get Alan Thicke back for it. It will relive the glory days of the tween-oriented, educational show that Robin Sparkles hosted in Canada -- with her showbiz partner, Glitter. Thomas and Bays are writing a song for Sparkles and Glitter. "We talked about it being a safety warning about thin ice," Thomas said.

There will be a third installment in the Robin Sparkles saga; they're trying to get Alan Thicke back for it. It will relive the glory days of the tween-oriented, educational show that Robin Sparkles hosted in Canada -- with her showbiz partner, Glitter. Thomas and Bays are writing a song for Sparkles and Glitter. "We talked about it being a safety warning about thin ice," Thomas said.

last Sparkles appearance wasn't that great (the Dawson's Creek guy) but the last Thicke appearance was good, so i don't know

i don't know how biographical the show is (for the writers or creators), but it gives the impression of having been really well imagined / observed up until last season when suddenly they no longer knew what their characters would be like doing the things they decided to make them do.

thoughts on the first ep of the new season? i was into it

couple nice things like marshall leaving the office, and robin generally,* but i was a *bit* ehh [via yawnsome marshall-lily sub-plot]

*really, robin 'still being hot' shouldn't really be a joke, so kudos

really hoping marshall + lily dont get boring

some dude, you will be happy to learn that the daughter is now playing the mole on 'nikita'.

i've been thinking that maybe one reason the last season seems to have taken such a bad turn (or seems to me like it did—i haven't been able to work up the willingness to watch it again) is that everyone's future prospects seem to have gotten all confused—mainly, lily and marshall getting married takes away a whole bunch of stuff to put into play, and their careers have all gotten murky, robin's, ted's, and marshall's at least. (lily's and barney's have never much been in question, except for after lily dumped marshall—just sources for workplace-and-character-specific jokes.) a lot of the old humor played off the mix between their careers and love lives, but there hasn't been any dynamism in their careers since ted became a professor—which they could have exploited a lot more but didn't. the relationship plots are bound to start seeming stale with less change elsewhere.

lily and marshall are bound to be boring because the show's main comedic-dramatic engine is 'will i get what i want or not?', and now that they're married not enough is at stake.

fave joek, remembering it, was barney starting to tell the story of capt dibs or whatever

I believe the SS Dibs was lost at sea..

pretty avg episode, I laughed at "you're giving me a de-rection"

laughed at this a lot, but it may have been just that nice feeling from seeing friends you haven't seen in a while. in the form of a tv show.

i really enjoyed this because i had a DIBS argument with a good friend just this past weekend