“How I Met Your Mother” — Little Boys
I guess I’d call this an improvement over last week, though the problems are more or less the same. The show is going to have a real problem if it can’t find a way for Ted and Robin to inhabit more of the same storylines. Unlike the previous episode, this week I felt Robin’s story was the stronger of the two — though a lot of that could be from my never ending appreciation of adults saying inappropriate things to children. More after the jump…
Unfortunately, what I had hoped was going to happen never materialized. Perhaps it would be too obvious, but to me the potential for future stories would have been greatly helped had Robin decided that she could be with a man who had kids, causing Ted to not understand why their relationship couldn’t have worked out (as how that seemed to be one of the biggest reasons as to why they split up), and thus bringing to the stories together in some sort of dramatic climax. This, of course, did not happen, and instead amounted to little more than a one-off with both Robin and Ted’s progression. And isn’t that really what seems to be missing in these past two episodes? For a show that is suppose to be taking us from point A to point B (how he met their mother), it’s really frustrating when it feels like we’re spinning our wheels.
As for my other problem, Ted has become uncharacteristically Alpha-Male. Since he and Barney have been paired off it feels like all they ever do is go out looking to get laid (which I’m not against, as long as its in their character). Ted and Barney are friends because they enjoy each others opposites. Barney is the no strings attached über-bachelor looking for fun, where Ted is suppose to be the hopeless romantic who would accidentally say the L word on the first date. Now, he just seems like an asshole.
This isn’t to say that the episode was ruined. Robin’s interactions with the kid were pretty priceless and Barney’s re-walk-through of recent events absolutely saved a story I otherwise didn’t have much interest in. I will say that if the series writers weren’t as good as they are at making these time-jumps pay off I’d be worried that they dip into that bag a tad too often, but hey, if it works it works.
The real champ this episode was Marshall, whose wanting to play with the boys proved to be excellent fodder for his well timed lines and perfect reactions. Dare I say Marshall has usurped Barney as the reason to check in? Yes.
ALSO. Is anyone watching the “How it really happened” videos over at CBS.com’s Innertube? They’re funny, though I can’t say they are so funny you immediately feel like wading through a networks video portal in order to find them (and watch a thirty-second ad). I’m still on the fence as to how I feel about all of this supplemental material — sometimes you just want to watch the show, right?
October 16th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
L word: “Lesbian”?
October 17th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Yeah the Ted thing is a little weird, but i also feel like I know people who get like that after big break ups.