“How I Met Your Mother” — Something Borrowed
Honestly, who doesn’t love this show? Oh, that’s right, Les Moonves doesn’t love this show (robot!). Too bad it’s his finger on the button.
Quick sidebar: It seems stupid to root against an entire network. Root against shows, or for shows, or against or for personalities, but a network is just so big and faceless its kind of hard to hold a grudge against it. Well, I actively root against CBS. I root against them because its an entire network based on diluting the television landscape with the most mediocre, safe programming imaginable — and I’m talking about network television which is suppose to have mediocre programming.
Honestly CBS, how many crime shows is too many crime shows? Allow me to list them to better illustrate my point: CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Cold Case, Without A Trace, NCIS, The Unit, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds, and maybe even Ghost Whisperer, which may or may not involve crime… and ghosts. It’s just so sickeningly boring, and as a television viewer I actually find it kind of insulting that I’m being sold the same program a dozen different ways and expected to thank them for the pleasure. I continue to bitch and moan after the break…
None of this would bother me if it weren’t for the greatness that is How I Met Your Mother and its apparent hatred by its own network. Look, you can have a collection of shit shows that you crank out of your office dub-rack, but the possible dismissal of a critically adored, fairly successful (though not Two and A Half Men successful) and YOUNG comedy almost comes off as the network flipping the bird to all of those supporters saying, “Hey, we’re the number one network, and f#ck you for the pleasure.”
This is different than Fox with Arrested Development or even NBC with the possible future of Friday Night Lights. Those shows were given a fair shot to find an audience but couldn’t attracted enough to justify the production costs (regardless of critical reaction). The thing with How I Met Your Mother, and why it might be a more significant comedy contribution than The Office or 30 Rock, is that its an incredibly funny show that aims for a broad audience and succeeds without falling into the trappings of a traditional sit-com. It isn’t a niche program. HIMYM wants to be and can be the new Friends. Remember Friends?
Maybe this is all premature. Maybe CBS will do the right thing and give them the third season they deserve (hopefully leading to a fourth). But until they have signed on the line that is dotted CBS is on my list. You hear me Moonves? That’s right, you’re on the list of a TV-Blogger. Fear me.
Oh, and “Something Borrowed” was pretty great. Especially that guy whose job it was to put a lid on Scooter. Loved it.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:25 am
[...] About a week ago, I went on a rant about the depressing nature of the CBS network. For a company so comfortable in first place, it seemed to refuse any risk-taking whatsoever. This was, of course, especially true as rumors about the cancellation of How I Met Your Mother began to circulate. Well here we are a short time later, HIMYM is safe and CBS’s fall schedule adds the most ambitious (if smallest number of) new shows of any network. [...]