I tend to forget things. Whether it is just blatant ignorance or life passing by too quickly, things tend to slip my mind. So when I watched the second batch of How I Met Your Mother episodes, I felt like an idiot because I forgot the cardinal rule of sitcoms: they kind of stink their first few episodes while they figure out what they can really do and cannot do. This has been true for nearly every sitcom over the past decade or so. Parks and Recreation sucked for its first season before it figured out what it was good at. I only made it through 4 episodes of Sports Night before bailing because of the dumb relationships that the employees had with each other, the show always lagged before a great ending swept up the episode to being barely watchable.
The show’s biggest problem, though, was their improper use of the laugh track. It’s like the producers were still arguing over whether or not they wanted to use the damn thing and made a compromise by picking and choosing what jokes to use it on. That randomness distracted from the plot and frustrated me to no end. I continue to hear it’s an awesome show and I should watch more of it but I am skeptical.
ANYWHO, I should have learn my lessons from sitcoms past when I was evaluating the first six episodes of HIMYM but my dumb self forgot all about history. Let me explain to you that the first episodes of the show were not bad. In fact, they were the opposite. As you might recall, they were really fun and all the characters were enjoyable to watch. But these next seven episodes took an NBA playoffian-type notch up that made the show feel special and among the most original sitcoms on TV, at least better than the other ones on its own network.
In the last post I said that Robin was my least favorite character because she wasn’t really actively involved in the plots and the writers wanted to make her a vocal point in an episode or two because she was there and they needed to use here because she was there.
Scratch that thinking.
Robin, at least for this season, is going to be the girl that Ted swoons over even though the viewer already knows that she isn’t the mother (otherwise the show would already be over). She has value in the sense that we get to see how love struck Ted will actually get. We saw an example of this in ‘The Pineapple Incident” when he blacked out after drinking five shots in 45 seconds. It is interesting to see Ted pine over a girl that has rejected him once, and that probably just makes Ted want Robin more. For all those reasons, and the development that she is Canadian, has made me much more invested with her in spite of the fact that she still remains my least favorite character on the show.
-Moving onto Lily and Marshall…they have been together for so long that they have sort of become like an old married couple, except they have more sex than an old married couple. The story that involved going to Marshall’s hometown for Thanksgiving was pretty funny. It was pretty hilarious seeing every member of the Eriksen’s (including the women) tower over Lily as they made the Eriksen Seven Layer Salad. The only thing I didn’t like from Lily and Marshall this time around was that the ending of the Thanksgiving episode was rather cheesy and the writers could’ve done better. The funniest interaction between them was when they were confined to the bathroom while Ted was trying to get it on with Victoria and they had to face the dilemma of Lily peeing in front of Marshall. Honestly, I have no idea how Marshall did it. That is like something out of Porky’s but a 1000 times worse. He is a brave soul.
-There is nothing new to write about Barney, except for the fact that with each passing episode he is becoming one of the coolest wingmen/ best friends in sitcom history. I am always on my seat to hear what new pickup line he has and to see how spectacularly gets rejected. He’s really one of a kind.
-My favorite episode of this batch was “The Pineapple Incident”. I am a sucker for “Hangover”-type recalls and this is HIMYM’s version of one before the actual film was even made. It’s a shame that we never found out where the pineapple came from but that was the one thing that the show wanted us to take away from the episode. Also, Josh Radnor plays a fantastic drunk and the chemistry between him and the rest of the cast really shows through in this episode.
That is all I have for the second entry in the HIMYM journal, where I try to catch up with the rest of the world by periodically watch a batch of episodes and vigorously writing about them.
Til’ next time…
The show’s biggest problem, though, was their improper use of the laugh track. It’s like the producers were still arguing over whether or not they wanted to use the damn thing and made a compromise by picking and choosing what jokes to use it on. That randomness distracted from the plot and frustrated me to no end. I continue to hear it’s an awesome show and I should watch more of it but I am skeptical.
ANYWHO, I should have learn my lessons from sitcoms past when I was evaluating the first six episodes of HIMYM but my dumb self forgot all about history. Let me explain to you that the first episodes of the show were not bad. In fact, they were the opposite. As you might recall, they were really fun and all the characters were enjoyable to watch. But these next seven episodes took an NBA playoffian-type notch up that made the show feel special and among the most original sitcoms on TV, at least better than the other ones on its own network.
In the last post I said that Robin was my least favorite character because she wasn’t really actively involved in the plots and the writers wanted to make her a vocal point in an episode or two because she was there and they needed to use here because she was there.
Scratch that thinking.
Robin, at least for this season, is going to be the girl that Ted swoons over even though the viewer already knows that she isn’t the mother (otherwise the show would already be over). She has value in the sense that we get to see how love struck Ted will actually get. We saw an example of this in ‘The Pineapple Incident” when he blacked out after drinking five shots in 45 seconds. It is interesting to see Ted pine over a girl that has rejected him once, and that probably just makes Ted want Robin more. For all those reasons, and the development that she is Canadian, has made me much more invested with her in spite of the fact that she still remains my least favorite character on the show.
-Moving onto Lily and Marshall…they have been together for so long that they have sort of become like an old married couple, except they have more sex than an old married couple. The story that involved going to Marshall’s hometown for Thanksgiving was pretty funny. It was pretty hilarious seeing every member of the Eriksen’s (including the women) tower over Lily as they made the Eriksen Seven Layer Salad. The only thing I didn’t like from Lily and Marshall this time around was that the ending of the Thanksgiving episode was rather cheesy and the writers could’ve done better. The funniest interaction between them was when they were confined to the bathroom while Ted was trying to get it on with Victoria and they had to face the dilemma of Lily peeing in front of Marshall. Honestly, I have no idea how Marshall did it. That is like something out of Porky’s but a 1000 times worse. He is a brave soul.
-There is nothing new to write about Barney, except for the fact that with each passing episode he is becoming one of the coolest wingmen/ best friends in sitcom history. I am always on my seat to hear what new pickup line he has and to see how spectacularly gets rejected. He’s really one of a kind.
-My favorite episode of this batch was “The Pineapple Incident”. I am a sucker for “Hangover”-type recalls and this is HIMYM’s version of one before the actual film was even made. It’s a shame that we never found out where the pineapple came from but that was the one thing that the show wanted us to take away from the episode. Also, Josh Radnor plays a fantastic drunk and the chemistry between him and the rest of the cast really shows through in this episode.
That is all I have for the second entry in the HIMYM journal, where I try to catch up with the rest of the world by periodically watch a batch of episodes and vigorously writing about them.
Til’ next time…