Posts with tag Josh Radnor
Posted Oct 7th 2008 1:09AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E03) As a native and resident of New Jersey, I was very offended by this episode.
Actually, that's not true. As most Jerseyans will tell you, we have a sense of humor about our state and make fun of it all the time. But when outsiders make fun of it, boy... watch out.
Ted Mosby's the worst kind of New Yorker; he moves there from some other part of the country, rides a subway or two, has a dog at Papaya King and thinks he has the right to make fun of the B&Ts (Bridge & Tunnelers) who love visiting New York but would rather live in their (slightly) cheaper and quieter homes in the suburbs. We've seen Ted unleash his wrath on the Garden State in the past, but now his dislike of my home state came back to bite him in the ass... in the form of a pretty blond doctor.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: I Heart NJ
Posted Sep 29th 2008 11:30PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E02) "This burger is so good I want to sew my ass shut."I don't tend to open my reviews with a quote, but this one from Barney was too good to ignore. Might as well give it the
Best Barneyism of the week, but it's only one of a ton of memorable lines from all the characters in this episode. Was it funny? Damn straight. Did it make me hungry? Absolutely. Did it make me afraid of Regis Philbin? Maybe a little.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Best Burger in New York
Posted Sep 23rd 2008 12:02AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E01) Right now, Sarah Chalke plays two different doctors on two different series. And, as I ponder the mediocre fourth-season opener of
How I Met Your Mother, I find it remarkable that
Mother's Dr. Stella Zinman is the polar opposite of
Scrubs' Dr. Elliot Reid. Elliot can be manic; Stella is always calm. Elliot is completely insecure (though less so now than earlier); Stella is rock-solid sure of herself. Elliot lets life happen to her; Stella takes action.
But who would I want to date? Elliot. Why? Easy; Elliot's interesting; Stella's boring. And therein lies a huge problem.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Do I Know You? (season premiere)
Posted Sep 10th 2008 3:40PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Interviews, How I Met Your Mother, Reality-Free
Yes, I know:
I just spoke to Carter Bays a couple of months ago, right before
How I Met Your Mother's season finale. But there was so much news coming out about the show over the summer --
The Bro Code,
a wedding, self-contained episodes,
Regis -- that I felt I had to speak to him again before the fourth season started on Sept. 22.
(Well, I actually wanted to talk to both Carter and his show-running partner Craig Thomas, but, as usual, the mystery man was elsewhere. I've met him more than once, though, so I know he does exist.)
Anyway, I could have spoken to Bays at the CBS press tour party in July, but I wanted to get a bit more in depth, so we arranged a phone interview; that took place a couple of weeks ago, right after the third episode of the fourth season wrapped. He was a bit more evasive about those topics than he's been in the past, but he still provided me some good information about the upcoming season, the "haunting" singing voices of his male stars, and what it's like to see his show being played on an airplane. Interview is after the jump.
Continue reading Carter Bays of How I Met Your Mother: The TV Squad Interview
Posted May 19th 2008 10:35PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Video, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S03E20) Wow, talk about a jam-packed episode. We saw major character development, flashbacks upon flashbacks, some issues resolved and others completely thrown into chaos, and a whole lot of funny talk of miracles.
Oh, and we saw Sarah Chalke,
as Carter Bays told me last week. That was just cherry on the sundae, though.
Since so much stuff happened, let's just get to it after the jump, OK?
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Miracles (season finale) - VIDEO
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 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 6th 2008 9:22PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Attention
How I Met Your Mother fans! There's a 99% chance that the show is returning for a fourth season. CBS still hasn't given the Monday night laugher an official pick up -- which they did for the freshman sitcom
The Big Bang Theory way back on February 15th -- ticking off many a comedy fan (including yours truly). Nothing against
Big Bang; I love the show. But was it more deserving of an early pick up than
Mother? Not to me.
Anyway, I had the chance to interview
How I Met Your Mother's Josh Radnor yesterday and the actor told me that the cast is definitely working on the assumption that they will be back next fall. When I asked him directly if the show will be renewed by CBS, he laughed and said, "I'm not worried, but who knows. It's television and stranger things have happened. We're doing better than we've ever done, although I kind of go to sleep when I read those Nielsen reports. I would think we are coming back. Yes, we are."
That was enough for Josh, but I needed more assurances. Call me needy. I pressed for evidence that Lily, Marshall, Robin, Barney and Ted are all going to be hanging out at McLaren's with me next fall, like usual. "I'll just say this, we are filming a cliffhanger. It's not like we wrap up the series."
Continue reading Josh Radnor on Mother's future: I'm not worried
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 28th 2008 11:11PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Video, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S03E17) Interesting ending to this one, huh?
I'll get to that after the jump, for those who are spoiler-phobic. This was an episode full of story and character development, and some glimpses into the personalities of all five members of the
HIMYM gang. And it was pretty damned funny. The show's starting on an end-of-season roll, and with some big emotional and interpersonal issues coming to a head right now, the last few episodes are looking very promising.
Now, about that goat...
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Goat - VIDEO
Posted Apr 21st 2008 10:42PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Video, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S03E16) Bless the peapickin' little hearts of Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. All week, they've been setting us up, telling us about the return of Robin Sparkles, saying that we were going to get an episode full of eighties and nineties goodness, complete with James Van Der Beek, Tiffany, and Alan Thicke. We even
got a video (full video is after the end of the review) as a taste.
But all of it was a ruse. A week-long ruse to distract us from realizing what was
really going to happen in this episode. Since I don't want to spoil it for anyone, come with me to the after-jump portion of our review and then we can talk.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Sandcastles in the Sand - VIDEOS
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 Apr 14th 2008 10:57PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Video, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S03E15) The original name of this episode was going to be "The Simmons Report," according to IMDb and Epguides. But, as we all know, there was a report in the episode, but it got a much different -- and much cooler -- name. In fact that little joke is one of a number of silly throwaway jokes that made this episode one of the funniest of the season. And what was interesting was, in the middle of all that goofiness, we got serious advancement of story in the deal. And, refreshingly, the story wasn't the relentless pursuit of the mother's identity. No, we find out more about Marshall's career and come a step closer to seeing why he became a bald mess by 2030.
Oh, and we also got to learn about the chain/circle/pyramid of screaming. I wish I knew about that when I used to be a corporate wage slave. It would have made my life a lot easier.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Chain of Screaming - VIDEO
Posted Apr 3rd 2008 9:23AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, How I Met Your Mother, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
I'm a huge fan of CBS'
How I Met Your Mother. However, I'm not a Britney Spears fan, especially due to everything she did this past year. So when CBS announced a few weeks ago that
Spears would guest star on the show, I was not a happy camper.
That said, after watching the episode "
Ten Sessions," I had to admit that Britney Spears gave a good enough performance as Abby, the crazy office assistant. But I was hoping that this would be the last we would see of Abby. The TV Fairy didn't hear my plea and decided that Spears could return for one more episode ... if planets aligned.
Continue reading Spears back on How I Met Your Mother?
Posted Mar 31st 2008 10:55PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Video, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews
(S03E14) First of all, let's get this out of the way:
TedMosbyIsAJerk.com works.
Of course it does. We've come to expect nothing less from Bays and Thomas, as they love to use the Web to further the
How I Met Your Mother brand. This site looks like it's fun: cheap 1996-era graphics and text, lots of exclamation points... there's even a song written by poor Anna, who still thinks Barney is Ted. Oh, and that Ted Mosby is a jerk.
It's not a coincidence that
HIMYM's first truly funny episode returning from the strike is Barney-centric. Even though Barney seems to be the most one-dimensional character on the surface, Carter and Craig have used him (and the very game Neil Patrick Harris) as a blank canvas, giving him all sorts of backstory elements that seem crazy... but somehow plausible. He used to be a hippie; he has a black gay brother; he slept with
Madeline Albright... it all seems entirely possible, doesn't it?
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Bracket - VIDEO
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