[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="The cast of How I Met Your Mother"]
[/caption]Last week I wrote my mini-rant about How I Met Your Mother's fifth season. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas promised that season six would be different, that they'd finally continue making progress in the central narrative: how did Ted meet the mother?
How did the season six premiere do in delivering on the promise? Well, Bays and Thomas did an solid job but there were some flaws. For instance, the show relied on an old trick that has gotten old six years into the show. Every season thus far had an episode that made it seem Ted would finally meet the mother. The most annoying 'we fooled you' was the foot episode I mentioned in last week's preview (and no, the name of this blog "The Foot" is not a tribute to How I Met Your Mother). The problem with these episodes is simple: the story becomes meaningless at the end of the episode. The name of the show has become the bane of the series' existence. Ted learns nothing after many of his dates makes the same mistakes continually. The sentiment at the end of one of these episodes has gone stall too. These episodes always end with Ted's narration telling the audience that the girl did find happiness, just not with him.
Most of "Big Day" revolved around Ted wanting to approach a pretty girl at the bar; however, an old ex showed up and hugged the pretty girl as soon as Ted decided to make his move. Neurosis temporarily took over as Ted re-lived the apparent sour post-breakup experience between he and Cindy, the ex. Cindy seems like a completely arbitrary character now. In last year's foot/ankle episode, Ted said the ankle belonged to the mother. We now know Ted will meet the mother at a wedding that we flash-forward to in the beginning and end of the episode. The ankle episode now becomes essentially meaningless. Why spend 22 minutes to get to an ankle when that plot point is useless? If Ted sees this girl's ankle at the wedding and knows she is the one, I will stop watching the show the second after that happens.
Most of the bar stuff was good. The show played Robin's breakup for laughs, which is good, because no one bought Don as the love of Robin's life. Barney was Barney.
The Lily/Marshall storyline fell completely flat. Pregnancy storylines never go well in television. Name me one baby plot on television that went well and The Foot will give you a free plastic spoon. How I Met Your Mother used to nail the pathos of a life-changing situation before the series fell off a cliff last year. Lily and Marshall's problems felt very forced. Lily's anxiety about pregnancy and her fear that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant is okay but the show didn't earn those feelings. Lily's feelings last year were played as laughs. She wouldn't agree to try to have a child until she saw a fifth bloody doppelganger. Does that really seem like someone ready to carry and nurture a small life for nine months? You need to see Barney's doppelganger in order for you to make a decision? Are these writers very stoned? They must've been bludgeoned in the head with blunt instruments.
Overall, the sixth season premiere had improvements. It might take twenty more episodes to get to the actual wedding but we should finally meet Ted's wife this season. I'm looking forward to the stories that lead to the wedding as well.
It's very possible I return around 12:30AM or 1AM with a review of The Event pilot.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
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