Comments | swatkat24: So

swatkat24

So

Apr 01, 2014 22:18

Who watched the HIMYM series finale?

[Note that I stopped watching after Barney proposed to Robin and that I know everything that happened in the finale.]

http://swatkat.dreamwidth.org/334620.html |

( Read more... )

tv: how i met your mother

Comments 14

nell65 April 2 2014, 13:06:07 UTC

I didn't watch - I drifted away a while ago, caught some odd episodes bc the kid is sort of watching it, figuring I'd netflix the whole at some point. I was actually seriously intriqued by the way they played with the narrative structure this past season and I wanted to see how it all worked out on screen ( ... )

swatkat24 April 2 2014, 13:51:25 UTC

It's AWFUL, and I will never, ever watch it. It's selling the story for a stupid punchline, a 'hahaha we pulled a loooong con, didn't we?' Except it was stupid, because it basically sacrifices everything they built in the last several seasons - both Barney/Robin, Barney's growth as a character, Ted's growth as a character, and relegates Robin to 'miserable but successful' career womanhood in a life without her closest friends (BREAKING UP LILY AND ROBIN!!!). I don't know how they think it's acceptable. And I say this as someone who briefly enjoyed Ted/Robin in S2.

It's worse than Ross/Rachel. At least everything else about the Friends finale was nice.

PS. Way to call Neal's end, babe! I didn't think it would happen so soon, but on the other hand - happy to have the dangling plot thread snipped. It didn't make any sense of course - "I will defy fate and time to get back to Emma and Henry, wait! no! recall my father though it means my immediate death!" but. Hey. And I realized what the problem was. The actor couldn't hardly get any ( ... )

nell65 April 2 2014, 14:29:15 UTC

I suspect the HIMYM end - like the HP end - was dreamed up long before the interim played out, so yeah. It wasn't at all faithful to who the characters had become. It was also horrible to Robin. Of course. Very modern dudely trying hard to appreciate women as full human beings, but ultimately failing. Hard.

I did feel a twinge of regret in his scene with Emma in the woods, where they're laughing about things.

Me too! Most definitely! It was the most natural and believable moment of their onscreen relationship yet. Or, ever, now. A glimmer of hope for something better, but.... the showrunners have so many plots already.

MRJ was also badly miscast - hence the lack of chemistry even with Robert Carlyle in what had to be the most cringeworthy death scene on this showOMG. It made Jamie Dornan's clutching his heart and dropping like a stone seem positively Shakespearian by comparison ( ... )

swatkat24 April 2 2014, 14:52:13 UTC

Your suspicion is correct - they went on record saying they knew what the ending was going to be from day one. In which case, why on earth did they go through the entire song and dance about Barney and Robin and their wedding (built up through several seasons!) and Ted outgrowing his obsession and moving on? It makes no sense to me, to go through that journey only to regress to episode 1.1. That's not a full circle, despite the cutesy parallel - that's... more like a game of Snakes and Ladders where you've nearly made it through to the end, only to fall all the way back down.

They've done such disservices to Robin often - the entire bit with her desire to not have children having to do with her inability to have children, for instance. But this officially takes the cake.

I think there was a conceptual problem at the root of Neal's character - which is they wanted him to be one of the good guys, but, in his actions - he was basically a little - to giant - shit most of his life. A petty thief, minor grifter, the kind of asshat who ( ... )

Thread 10

sk56 April 3 2014, 02:33:37 UTC

"that's... more like a game of Snakes and Ladders where you've nearly made it through to the end, only to fall all the way back down. "

The number of people who think that this kind of plot device is sophisticated and cool is alarmingly large. It's like they want to write nothing but O'Henry stories.

swatkat24 April 3 2014, 10:48:19 UTC

O' Henry wrote short stories. And even then, it only worked sometimes, in his best works. To undermine nine seasons of storytelling for the sake of a punchline feels... I don't know, juvenile? Stupid? I'm running out of pejoratives.

nell65 April 3 2014, 15:39:36 UTC

And the punch line wasn't even funny.

sk56 April 6 2014, 19:46:01 UTC

A thought and a question. I understand that most Brit television series have a more clearly defined end point -- they go in knowing they will go out at a certain point. Mostly I hear US television watchers complain about this -- "it was just getting going and then they had to stop" kinds of objections ( ... )