JoshRadnor-related stories
Posted May 18th 2009 10:12PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E24) It's been an interesting season for
How I Met Your Mother, hasn't it? The ratings for the show have never been better, but longtime fans (me included) have been concerned about its inconsistency this season. Episodes that would be considered in the pantheon of
Mother classics -- ones that mess with timelines and talk about the "mother mythology" and the stories of the rest of the Scooby gang -- were mixed in with standalone plots that were sometimes funny but other times were contrived and sitcommy.
I knew that the standalones would be more prevalent this season -- Carter Bays has told me and others as much -- but as I watched this season, I wondered why they were trying to make the show more accessible. Now that I've seen the fourth season finale, I completely understand why the show is going in that direction. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Leap (season finale)
Posted May 12th 2009 12:45AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E23) Earlier today, I received a rough-cut copy of
HIMYM's season finale. I was all giddy and wanted to pop it in the DVD player right away, but I wanted to wait until I saw tonight's episode first, figuring it would set up the finale, as it did in past seasons. This episode does so, at least a little bit. But the most important part of the story -- the results of Ted's chance meeting with Stella on that street corner -- was at once disappointing and refreshing.
Confused? Well journey with me after the jump and I'll tell you why.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: As Fast As She Can
Posted May 5th 2009 9:15AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E22) Carter Bays and Craig Thomas are a couple of clever guys, aren't they?
They're not only good at playing with time and space in their show -- something they did exceptionally well in this episode -- but they're also pretty good at tweaking the wording of an episode to make the audience feel like they're getting somewhere in the story when in fact things have only inched forward.
Just think about the words they used to describe the monumental outcome of Ted's day. Did they say everything you thought they said? Ruminate on it a second before you rejoin me after the jump.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Right Place Right Time
Posted Apr 28th 2009 8:39AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E21) Perhaps this dates me a bit, but I remember an episode of
M*A*S*H where Charles basically played both sides of a practical joke war between B.J. and Hawkeye, and ended up having the joke be on him in the end. That episode was what came to mind as I was watching this one, which was amusing but by far the least funny
HIMYM episode in quite awhile.
The practical joke plot, with someone always being in the middle, is an old saw of the sitcom biz, and Bays and Thomas pulled it out of their bag of tricks this week. They tweaked it a little bit, though; this became more of an exercise in Marshall and Barney teaching Ted a lesson that ended up going way to far, and everything seemed to work out for Robin, who was the middlewoman. But it was familiar enough that it had the ghostly imprint of sitcoms past on it. And when that happens on this show, it's never good.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Three Days Rule
Posted Apr 14th 2009 8:43AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E20) For some reason, even though both stories in this episode were pretty light and piffly, Bays and Thomas gave us enough character-development pellets to keep the fans happy. That's the way it's been most of this season, hasn't it? Be very goofy and sitcommy for the most part, but with story development mixed in for flavor.
It really has made for a bumpy season; even though ratings are up, fans who have been with the show since day one can't help but be frustrated. That's why I tend to view episodes these days by simple comedy standards; if it made me laugh, I liked it. This one made me laugh.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Mosbius Designs
Posted Mar 31st 2009 12:50AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E19) As a steadfast
HIMYM watcher, the fan in me always struggles with the TV critic in me. The critic wants the show to go back to the continuing storyline goodness of the show's early seasons. But the fan in me doesn't want to be weighed down with all that semi-serious thinking and just wants to laugh his ass off at 8:30 every Monday evening.
This week, the fan won out. Like most of the episodes this year, the story was a standalone, not full of Mother searches or Ted/Robin/Barney triangular angst. It was goofy as hell, more full of gags than crafty jokes. But it was funny as hell. And considering this is a sitcom, funny should be good enough, right?
I mean, how can anyone hate an episode that has Barney wearing a pink wig and a fishnet tank top while sporting an earlobe that looks like a rotting cheesesteak?
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Murtaugh
Posted Mar 24th 2009 12:26AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E18) Here's why I sometimes wish I was a sitcom writer: While breaking down a story to use for an upcoming episode, someone brings up the idea of names for Canadian sex acts. Then what occurs is what I would imagine to be one of the all-time funniest brainstorming sessions, where the table of writers just blurts out names like "Musty Goaltender," "Squatting Eskimo," and "Old King Clancy."
Then someone comes up with the idea of having Barney find those phrases
on a cheesy website, so more hilarity ensues as the website gets created, with the added joke that clicking each phrase generates a picture of an angry Alan Thicke explaining that the site is out of order (My favorite: "
Thicke mad. Thicke smash!")
I mean, the cascading jokes on that website alone (see what happens when you right-click on Alan Thicke or click on the words "crack a brown pop," for instance) made this a silly but funny episode, where we find out how funky Canadian sex acts are and also find out how Ted might be able to use his douchery for good.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Old King Clancy
Posted Mar 17th 2009 12:47AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E17) This episode proves that Bays and Thomas can do silly, sitcommy things in an episode and still take their loyal audience on an emotional ride with the characters they've grown to love.
Because of that, this was a fun one. We not only got a glimpse of what four of the gang might look like when they're seniors (Ted somehow looks 20 years younger than Marshall, even though they're the same age) but we got to find out about the joy of nightshirts and a morning broadcast that would make Al Roker jealous.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Front Porch
Posted Mar 3rd 2009 7:50AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E15) We've waited about three weeks to see this episode, since President Obama decided to inconvenience
HIMYM fans by holding his first primetime press conference on the night this was originally supposed to air. Was "The Stinsons" worth the wait? Definitely. And not just because we met Barney's mom.
It was just plain ol' laugh-out-loud funny. And Bays and Thomas were able to explore how Barn's ability to deceive could be used for sentimental reasons as well as self-serving ones. It also gave us a chance to see Ted overact, Marshall call himself the runt of the family, and Lily and Robin hide under coats and loose tops.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Stinsons
Posted Feb 2nd 2009 11:48PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Web, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E14) This week we got a bit of a stealthy episode. There were two overt storylines -- Robin's efforts to get a job and stay in the country and why three of the gang still have "weak-ass crap" on their resumes -- but the
real storyline was simmering just underneath.
It all had to do with Barney and his feelings for Robin. And the fun of Barney's video resume is only a small part of what you
really saw, if you looked hard enough.
Oh, and we got two new websites out of Bays and Thomas this week. But you know that with those two guys at the helm of a show, anything is possimpible ...
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Possimpible
Posted Jan 19th 2009 11:17PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E13) Something that's been missing for most of this season of
HIMYM is the unique Bays-Thomas method of storytelling. If you're a fan of the show, you know what I'm talking about: you think the story is going one way, you even think that you're keeping up with the time-shifting and story fragments. Then, when the guys finally reveal where they were going with the story, you get a surprising but funnier or more emotional impact. This year, we saw a lot of the time shifting, but not many stories where everything came together at the last minute to make you smile.
Until this week, that is. We got the kind of episode that
HIMYM die-hards have been craving all year. I just wish the stories that all came together at the end were just a skosh stronger.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Three Days of Snow
Posted Jan 12th 2009 11:33PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E12) When I saw the promos for this episode, my heart sank. I really thought that this was going to be the standard sitcom "exes have a relapse and have to deal with it" trope that we've seen since at least
Cheers. But I have to give Bays and Thomas credit; they put enough of a twist on the old game to make it entertaining. And they added a B-story that was light, but funny and relatable. More on that in a sec.
Back to the A-story. For the twist, we can thank Barney. And not just because he broke all those TVs.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Benefits
Posted Dec 19th 2008 2:02PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Reality-Free
No one's accused the cast of
How I Met Your Mother of having a collectively crummy sense of humor. Quite the contrary; every time I've seen them either in person or in a behind-the-scenes video, they always seem to be goofing around and having fun. At the very least, I'd imagine that neither Jason Segel nor Neil Patrick Harris allows things to get too heavy on the set.
So when
Entertainment Weekly asked the cast
to pose as various celebrities in a "The Best of 2008" pictorial, I'm sure they didn't need much time to say yes. In the pictorial, the cast portray the Olympic 4x200m relay team, the Jonas Brothers, and the cast of the
Indiana Jones and
Sex and the City movies. Finally, Segel and Alyson Hannigan pose as Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, respectively, during the VP debate. It might have been more interesting if they reversed roles in that photo, but I guess Segel didn't have the legs for it.
[via
Pop Candy]
Posted Dec 16th 2008 9:17AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E11) I tell ya, you'll never get homesick in New York; no matter where you're from, there's a bar full of ex-pats from there sitting and following the sports teams, reminiscing, and talking about life back home. Even if you're a Red Sox fan in a Yankees world, for instance, there are
safe havens for you all over the city.
In this cute and funny episode, Marshall showed Robin his safe haven, a little slice of his home state of Minnesota right in NYC, and it seemed like a fun place to hang and eat "mini" burgers. Not sure if the vision of all those Vikings jerseys (especially their
butt-ugly modern-day models) is something you'd want to see all the time, but, hey, where else can you complain about the failure of the 1998 team (who were the first team to go 15-1 and
miss the Super Bowl) ten years later and not be laughed at?
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Little Minnesota
Posted Dec 9th 2008 1:23AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E10) This was one of those episodes that wasn't overly funny, but it went a long way in exploring the various personalities of the entire Scooby gang. We learned that Ted needed to fight to help him not be the pathetic guy who was left at the altar. We found out that Barney will still resort to deceit to land Robin, but there's at least love underneath that deceit. We also found out that Robin gets hot for guys with shiners, Marshall and his brothers really wailed away at each other, and that Lily is the laziest, horniest teacher in New York. Well, we kinda knew that about Lily anyway, but I had to find something for all of the gang.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Fight
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