“How I Met Your Mother” — I’m Not That Guy
I know a great burger joint!
That was a bit of a disappointment, no? John Cho aside, this episode felt especially flat despite having plenty of material to work with. Ted Mosby the porn star? That’s kind of funny, right? Marshall having to decide between working for a major corporation versus working for a non-profit? Surely there are some comedic situations to be mined. Lily with credit card debt? That’s relatable. And yet, so rarely did it make me laugh. Perhaps the best way to sum up how “I’m Not That Guy” played out was “sitcomian.” Aside from a few clever cutaways, what separated this episode from your typical late-season Friends? Not much.
I think this week’s episode, compared to last week’s hilarious entry in the HIMYM canon, really illustrated why the show works when it works and why it doesn’t when it doesn’t. The classic sitcom form no longer elicits laughs. This is not because the writing is any worse than it once was or that everyone forgot the lessons taught to us by the classics like Cheers and Taxi and Mary Tyler Moore, but the fact that audiences have spent so much time watching sitcoms over the past sixty years there is very little room left for the form to provide genuine surprise (which in turn provides genuine laughter). The best episodes of How I Met Your Mother have been as much about turning the form on its head as writing a witty comeback to be spoken by a character. Where the two come together is where the shear pleasure of the series is able to shine through.
This? This was low-stakes comedy.
Tags: CBS, How I Met Your Mother
