Posts with tag BritneySpears
Posted May 15th 2008 10:04AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Interviews, How I Met Your Mother, Reality-Free
It's been a heck of a season for
How I Met Your Mother, between the writers' strike that everyone had to suffer through, blogs and other websites picking apart episodes in
Lost-esque fashion, and the Britney Phenomenon that got the attention of fans and non-fans alike. But the end result is a good one: the show has been picked up by CBS for a fourth season, giving fans one more year to enjoy the chemistry among the five leads while trying to guess who the heck the "Mother" actually is.
Despite the strike, co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas have been able to get out 20 episodes for the third season. The finale will be broadcast on Monday, May 19 at 8:30.
As he did before last year's finale, Bays and I got together by phone to discuss the season and the finale. Bays (who is on the right in the photo; Thomas, who is on the left, was on another call and couldn't make it) spoke about getting picked up, the finale, Sarah Chalke's role as Ted's new girlfriend Stella, how the show managed to pick up a mythology, and, of course, their very famous guest star. The interview is after the jump.
Continue reading Carter Bays of How I Met Your Mother: The TV Squad Interview
Posted May 13th 2008 2:27PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Interviews, How I Met Your Mother, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Just got off the phone with Carter Bays, co-creator of
How I Met Your Mother (Craig Thomas was doing another interview). He confirms that,
as earlier reports indicated, the show has been renewed for a fourth season.
"I think we can say it. We got our pickup. We're on the schedule, so we hear," he told me. As far as where the show will be on the schedule, he doesn't know, but "we'll be happy to be anywhere." When I asked him if he was confident that the show was going to be picked up, he said "Call me crazy, but I never really doubted it. I just felt like this show has a lot of creative life left in it, and that it's too good of an environment to up and disappear."
I asked him a lot about Britney Spears' appearance and if it was the reason why the show got picked up. "The cynical answer would be Britney, but I do think that even before that ... during the strike especially, when I managed to get out in the world it felt like enough people liked the show and proselytized for it that it's grown in viewership."
The full interview will be up either tomorrow or Thursday, where I ask Bays about Britney, not making the show guest star-heavy, some info on the finale, and why the heck was that framed letter in Stella's apartment. Stay tuned.
Posted May 13th 2008 9:37AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, Programming, How I Met Your Mother, Pickups and Renewals, Upfronts, Reality-Free
Well, it looks like fans of
How I Met Your Mother (me! me!) and
The Unit (maybe my parents?) have some early good news ahead of CBS's upfront, which is scheduled for tomorrow: The
LA Times' Show Tracker blog is reporting that
both shows will be renewed (thanks to Greg for
leaving a comment with the link last night).
The article talks more about
HIMYM, of course, mentioning that Britney Spears' first appearance gave the show the boost it needed to carry it to a fourth season. I wish that wasn't true, but I'm pretty sure it is. As much as fans of
HIMYM (me! me!) hated the distraction Brit Brit brought to the show, and really hated her wooden performance (especially last night, according to many of the commenters on
my review of "Everything Must Go"), they have to admit that without the pop tart, the show might not have made it.
Sigh. Oh, well. Whatever gets the job done, right? I'll see if I can confirm the renewal when I speak to Carter Bays and Craig Thomas later today.
Posted May 12th 2008 11:44PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Video, How I Met Your Mother, Celebrities, Episode Reviews
(S03E19) I'm going to be speaking to Carter Bays and Craig Thomas tomorrow afternoon, and I think that one of the first questions I'm going to ask them is if Britney Spears is going to be a recurring guest on the show. It's starting to look that way, based on what we saw tonight; the way things ended, I can just imagine crazy Abby popping up once or twice per season, just to make Ted's life miserable. And since Brit Brit established the role, I'd imagine she'd come back and reprise it.
And that's not altogether a bad thing. Once she becomes part of the fabric of the show, the episodes will be less about her presence and more about the story. Somehow (heh), Brit pulls off the nutty stalker role well enough, and maybe her acting will get a bit more refined the more she appears. At least I hope it does.
Why am I prattling on about Britney? Because there isn't much more about this episode that really stood out.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Everything Must Go - VIDEO
Posted May 12th 2008 2:01PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Reality-Free
There's a better reason for watching
How I Met Your Mother tonight than to see
Britney Spears reprising her role as Abby, the receptionist who may or may not be Barney's next conquest. On the episode called
Everything Must Go, Lily and Marshall face their financial troubles head on. With Marshall out of his evil corporate job, their future tied up in an apartment that's in desperate need of renovations because it was built on an incline, and Lily's credit card debt nearly $100,000, the Eriksens are in trouble. It's been building for weeks and it reaches a boiling point tonight when they realize everything must go.
They set up an online auction at a site called
lilyandmarshallselltheirstuff.com. The twist here is that the website auction is for real, reports
USA Today (sorry, no link... the story is only in the print edition). The creators of the show have set up the site and will raise money for the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles by selling Lily and Marshall's props and costumes. The auction site will last two weeks. The site is part of charityfolks.com and you can register now to take part once it goes live this evening.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother launches a charity auction
Posted May 5th 2008 11:57PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Video, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S03E18) You know how I keep saying that guest spots ruin the chemistry of
How I Met Your Mother? Well, that's not an absolute; sometimes, guests integrate well into the ensemble, or the story they're given is so good, that it just works. This week was one of those weeks. In fact, it was doubly good, since
both Sarah Chalke and Will Forte did a good job of fitting in, with Forte being his usual creepy-funny self and Chalke being... well, anyone who reads my
Scrubs reviews knows how I feel about Sarah.
What? I have respect for her acting ability! That's all...
Ahem... now, where were we?
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Rebound Bro - VIDEO
Posted Apr 29th 2008 7:41AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
We knew it was coming. Since
her first appearance on
How I Met Your Mother broke ratings records for the series, it was inevitable that Britney Spears would return as crazy receptionist Abby. Last week we reported that
Spears would be reprising her role on
HIMYM. Today,
CBS confirms the news and dishes about the episode that will mark the singer's return.
What's interesting about Britney's upcoming storyline in
HIMYM is that she'll be paired with Neil Patrick Harris. If you recall the actor was recently
misquoted saying that
the show didn't need guest stars like Britney Spears.
Spoilers ahead!Continue reading Britney definitely back on How I Met Your Mother
Posted Apr 21st 2008 4:22PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Casting, WGA Strike, Reality-Free
The fates have decreed that Alicia Silverstone is meant to play a mother. Earlier this year, she was rumored to be
the mother on
How I Met Your Mother, but then opted out of that storyline entirely when Britney Spears was inserted in a guest role on the very same episode. The episode went on to do boffo Nielsen numbers, and Alicia's role was played by Sarah Chalke, who may or may not turn out to be mother. Probably not since she's still part of
Scrubs, which is moving over to ABC.
Be that as it may,
Alicia Silversone has now been officially cast on the pilot Bad Mother's Handbook. Alia Shawkat (
Arrested Development) will also appear in the show as Alicia's daughter.
This comedy project has been set up at ABC and previously announced in the rush of production greenlighted soon after the writers' strike.
Continue reading Alicia Silverstone gets mom role in Bad Mother's Handbook
Posted Apr 21st 2008 8:03AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Casting, Reality-Free
You can stop the prayer. Your wish has been granted.
Britney Spears will be making a return appearance to
How I Met Your Mother.
The singer/actress has recently had a high-profile appearance on the CBS comedy as a receptionist who falls for one of the show's main characters, played by Josh Radnor. The response to her appearance was generally positive.
Watching the clips on the AOL Television site, Britney
does give a cute and funny performance. The character she plays is naive, sweet and tries not to offend people. She acted the role well and in the end her character gets taken advantage of by Neil Patrick Harris's character (sort of).
Britney's first appearance gave the episode phenomenal ratings. A return appearance was inevitable, particularly given Britney's real-world problems at the moment (she has a family to support and a lot of lawyer fees to pay). Some positive exposure would undoubtedly be good for the woman.
Posted Mar 31st 2008 5:40PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, How I Met Your Mother, Celebrities, Casting
One thing I didn't enjoy much about NBC's comedy
Will & Grace was the constant famous guest stars popping in almost on a weekly basis. At times, it felt like the episodes were written for those guest stars instead of writing the episodes first and then trying to find a famous person to fill in a role. Since the strike ended, I fear that
How I Met Your Mother is heading towards that same path. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing guest stars here and there in a series but having them pop up week after week can get tiring. So I hope this is only a renewal stunt for the series and not something that will become the standard.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that Britney Spears guest starred in the
March 24 episode of
HIMYM. Alicia Silverstone was set to appear in a few episodes (some suspect her character would have turned out to be
the mother) but
bowed out when Spears was hired because Silverstone was worried that her performance would be over-shadowed by Britney's appearance.
The latest addition to the
HIMYM guest star list:
Dawson's Creek's James Van Der Beek!
Slight spoilers about the role and episode ahead!Continue reading Van Der Beek to guest star on How I Met Your Mother
Posted Mar 25th 2008 2:01PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Ratings
Mission accomplished!
According to James Hibberd at
The Hollywood Reporter, Britney Spears' guest appearance on
How I Met Your Mother generated the highest ratings ever for the show. The overnight rating among adults 18-49 was a 4.5, attracting 10.6 million viewers. It was the only show in CBS's Monday comedy lineup to show improvement, as the rest fell in the ratings. This marks the second week in a row that the show generated solid ratings. Hibberd reports that the strong post-strike ratings for
HIMYM "assures" its renewal for the fall; CBS had been previously undecided on bringing it back.
Like I said last night,
I thought it was a low-water mark for the show, though apparently many of you disagreed with me. And, to be honest, even though Brit Brit did OK on the show, she was still a bit of a distraction. But, anything to help take the show from "maybe" to "definitely" status for next season is all right with me.
Posted Mar 24th 2008 10:23PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Video, How I Met Your Mother, Celebrities, Episode Reviews
(S03E13) You know, I'll probably be the only person in the TV-review world who won't lead off his review of this episode with a picture of Britney Spears. Believe me, I had one up before I saw the episode (it's still there; I put it after the jump). But after watching it, I just couldn't do it; the episode is about the relationship between Ted and his tattoo removal doctor. Britney, as most people expected, was just there as an accessory. More on her in a little bit.
OK, now on to the episode... it stunk.
It didn't just stink; it was among the worst episodes of
HIMYM I've ever seen. It was corny. It was only occasionally funny. And it had sitcommy situations that would have made
Three's Company fans roll their eyes. I was tempted to channel
The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy and utter
his catch phrase, but this episode didn't even deserve that.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Ten Sessions - VIDEO
Posted Mar 22nd 2008 2:02PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Celebrities
Britney Spears' return from insanity begins with
a guest spot on How I Met Your Mother this Monday night. She'll play Abby, a sweet-but-not-so-smart receptionist at a doctor's office (
doctor played by Sarah Chalke). Six items from Britney's
on-screen wardrobe will be auctioned off next week to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council. Available merchandise include a Juicy Couture dress (I didn't know receptionists could afford Juicy Couture!), and a Nanette Lepore dress and cardigan.
The auction is sponsored by CBS and 20th Century Fox Television, so I don't think Britney had anything to do with it or with the organization that will receive the money from the items. The auction begins Monday night, right after the episode airs.
There are
several clips of Britney's appearance on HIMYM on CBS' YouTube channel. They're super short and completely out of context, but I posted two of them after the jump in case you're interested:
Continue reading Britney Spears' sitcom wardrobe for sale - VIDEOS
Posted Mar 17th 2008 10:12PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Casting
(S03E12) How I Met Your Mother has been making a lot of news lately, with
its timeslot change, its constant
bubble status,
the hiring of Alicia Silverstone, the subsequent
hiring of a certain young woman named Britney, and the resulting
departure of Silverstone and arrival of Sarah Chalke.
But what we haven't seen were actual episodes, thanks to the
writers' strike. Thankfully, the strike is over and Bays and Thomas managed to be one of the first to get new episodes on the air, just in time for St. Patrick's Day. And, while
HIMYM's returned with only a slightly-above-average episode, we inched ever so closer to finding out the solution to the show's main mystery. That's the least the guys could do after three months off.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: No Tomorrow
Posted Mar 12th 2008 2:05PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Celebrities, Casting
Ooooh... juicy gossip! Michael Ausiello over at TV Guide.com has some good dish about
How I Met Your Mother that he swears is true.
Apparently
Alicia Silverstone has canceled her guest appearance on the show due to Britney Spears' upcoming cameo. As
Joel recently reported, Spears pitched the idea herself. She will play a wacky receptionist in a doctor's office--the doctor was supposed to be
played by Silverstone, and she was to appear in a "multi-episode arc". According to Ausiello, Silverstone quit the gig because she was worried that her performance would be over-shadowed by Britney's appearance. OK, that's a legitimate concern. She's probably right. Although, I think Britney was only going to be on one episode and Silverstone was slated for several.
Sarah Chalke, who plays Dr. Eliot Reed on
Scrubs, will take Silverstone's place. The episode in question is the third new episode after the writers' strike.
HIMYM begins new episodes on Monday, but an air date for the Britney episode is not yet confirmed.
Update:
E! Online is reporting the same information.Next Page >
The Upfronts: FOX
Carter Bays of How I Met Your Mother: The TV Squad Interview
The Upfronts: CBS
