How I Met Your Mother (Spoilers)

[Pex]

I suspect Marshall's subplot was written in because Jason Segel was busy filming a movie, which will be coming out soon, and couldn't spend full time on set.

[Avilan the Grey]

Finally watched the two-part trainwreck yesterday.

So. Much. Fail.

1. The Show went on too long for the ending to work.
The ending would have worked anywhere between season 3 and season 6 or so. After that the character developement ran away from the ending, so they had to effectively ruin 4 or 5 years of character developement (the show both showing that Robin and Barney were really good together and that Ted and Robin would never work being the major points here, as well as Barney's own maturing). It just didn't work and they were too lazy to rework the ending to fit the story they had actually created.

2. The setup of the final season is pointless.
What was the point of having the whole final season being an hour by hour countdown to Robin and Barney's wedding and the "meeting of the mother" when the wedding itself turned out to be a minor event (due to the out of character forced divorce above)? The wedding should have been a two-parter either at the very beginning of the season or part of the series finale.

3. The Mother dying was both too cheap and too dramatic.
The idea that she got cancer(?) as a way of getting her "out of the way" is both cheap (Hey look! Now Ted can be with his true love!!!) and too dramatic (She has to DIE! It can't just be a divorce!).

4. Character developement is for loosers.
See point 1. The writers basically ignored the second half of their story, pretending that all characters stopped developing around season 5.

5. "How I settled for your mother".
Indeed, this is how it comes across.

6. I called it.
Way back in season 1. Although I assumed they had divorced and Robin and Ted were already living together with Ted's kids, or at least dating. Then all the character developement happened, so I decided that can't be right...

Edit: The only thing I am unsure of myself: DID Marchal and Lily ever go to Italy? All through the last 2-4 episodes before the finale, this seemed to be the case. But in the finale it seems they never left the old apartment, not even moving to a bigger place in New York.

[ben-zayb]

snip

Welcome to the club!

[Avilan the Grey]

Welcome to the club!

Not too many shows jumps the shark in it's own final episode...

Edit: at least there will be an alternate ending on the DVD.

[Pendulous]

One thing that I think DOES work is the fact that Tracy's death gives a reason for Ted to even sit down and tell the story in the first place. Even Ted I don't think would sit his kids down for so long and tell a story about how he met their mother if she was still alive, and that emotion wasn't there. It makes sense for her to be dead, because it could be an emotional "let's reminisce about your dead mother". That is, assuming after six years, they could still do that.

Another thing is, it gets a little annoying to watch TV series after TV series, and have the main male and female protagonist end up together. Like it's already preprogrammed from the start. In Friends, four of the six end up together. In Scrubs, JD and Elliot. It was nice to see the idea that it wasn't so obvious who the couple was. It could have been nice just to avert a trope like that, not just for entertainment factor.

But yes, it was bad storytelling overall. Everything was rushed. Considering that the first scene in Barney's wedding was shown several seasons ago, it's really bad they couldn't fit the whole story into what basically becomes a limitless amount of time.

[Avilan the Grey]

It was only rushed because they focused way too much on that stupid wedding for a whole season, when they could have developed the relationship with the Mother.
Seriously, the reason why the show comes off so completely creepy is because even though if you check the timeline, Ted and his "true love" spend 10 years toghether, it is written and cut in such a way that she ends up being a five minutes placeholder for Robin so that Ted and Robin can eat the cake and still save it (by having kids / travel).

If they had paced the season completely different THAT PART of the finale would have worked.

However, they still COMPLETELY IGNORED the Robin / Barney character developement and chemistry by transplanting the season 3 ending on top of season 9. The latest this ending would have worked is if instead of Robin and Barney breaking up their first relationship (fat Barney / Blemish Robin) the ending would have been right there... And honestly I think that was the plan, now when I think about it, but then they got extended and had to keep writing. Instead the ending came crashing on top of Barney / Robin's HAPPY marriage several years later.

As for romance... it depends, for me. Ross and Rachel... Hell yes I wanted them together. Same with Leonard and Penny. Robin and Ted? Hell no! But the difference of course is that HIMYM made it VERY clear they were over eachother, and didn't work, while both Friends and BBT had the whole "Will They Or Won't They" chemistry going.