Posts with tag cobie smulders
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 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 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 16th 2008 1:02PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Music and Variety, Web, How I Met Your Mother, Reality-Free
For those that haven't heard, Robin Sparkles makes a triumphant return to How I Met Your Mother this coming Monday night, featuring guest appearances from Alan Thicke and James Van Der Beek.
Turns out, "Let's Go to the Mall" was only the A-side to her wildly popular Canadian pop single, first heard in the episode "Slap Bet." The B-side? "Sandcastles in the Sand," a cheesy ballad chock full of Canadian and 80's goodness... even though the song was supposedly recorded in the early 90's.
Well if you can't wait to hear it, now you can. Variety received the song and you can stream it from their website here. While not as catchy as "...Mall," the tune is still hilarious, full of Canuck references ("Together we were gonna travel the globe, from Alberta to Ontario.") and funny one-liners ("I miss your hair."). There's nothing yet on Sparkles' MySpace page, except the artwork for the album. I'm sure the full video will be posted after the show airs. It's sure to be an another huge viral hit for CBS and HIMYM.
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 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
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 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 Dec 10th 2007 11:43PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews
(S03E11) As a fan of
How I Met Your Mother, I bet it's tough for you to explain to non-fans why the show is a bit different from other sitcoms, isn't it? You could tell those non-fans to watch an episode, but if that person runs into a standard-grade, linearly-told episode like some of what we've seen this season, he or she will just shrug their shoulders and go "So what? I have no idea what the big deal is."
So here's a piece of advice to my fellow
HIMYM fans: mark this episode as "Save Until I Delete" on the TiVo, sit the next person who asks you about the show down, and show it to them. No, it's not the funniest episode of
HIMYM ever. But it
is a perfect example of how Bays and Thomas utilize time shifting to tell a story in a way that no one else on TV is doing right now.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Platinum Rule
Posted Nov 26th 2007 9:59PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews
(S03E10) I am so happy to know that gyms become passé by the year 2030. I agree with Old Ted / Bob Saget's voice: They are silly things. Silly, silly things that make you sweat indoors in a boring environment for extremely high amounts of money. After all, a pair of walking or jogging shoes are cheap and the outdoors are free, and more interesting...
Anyway, do I dare say that this episode was funnier than "Slapsgiving?" Yes, I do dare. I think the reason this episode was so good could be summarized in one word: Barney. Whenever we delve into Barn's life, we always find gold. Tonight, given Barney's yips at the Victoria's Secret after-party, I think we skipped past gold and struck uranium.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: The Yips
Posted Nov 19th 2007 10:44PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews
(S03E09) Well, the slap countdown clock is gone, and we've just experienced the first-ever Slapsgiving. Was it as good as everyone thought it was going to be?
Well, yes and no.
Despite how Barney felt about it, the impact of tonight's slap probably was blunted by the fact that we knew when it was coming. However, the goofiness that led up to the slap more than made up for that. And we even got a Robin / Ted plot that wasn't boring
or annoying. So it was a bonus. Oh, and the slap
was pretty funny too. Slaps always are.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Slapsgiving
Posted Nov 12th 2007 10:23PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews
(S03E08) HIMYM has always been at its best when it is shifting perspective and twisting time in a knot. This episode does both of those things. While neither plot was very earth-shattering from a creative standpoint, the time-shifting involved in telling the stories (along with some very funny sound effects in one case) made them both very funny.
Oh, and just as an aside, I'd like to finally welcome back Cobie Smulders and her character of Robin Sherbatsky back into the fold. She's been kind of on the outside looking in all season, but the she's been fully integrated back into the gang the last couple of weeks, and the show's much better for it.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Spoiler Alert
Posted Nov 5th 2007 11:33PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews
(S03E07) One of the grand unfolding mysteries we've been given this year by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas is "What the hell happened to Marshall and Lily?" I mean, every couple gets away from the hearts-and-flowers ideal that was pervasive when they got together, but it seems like Marshall and Lily lost more of it than most; Lily goes from flower-print-wearing kindergarten teacher to pearl-wearing hard-ass, and Marshall goes from youthful environmental supporter to balding corporate stooge. Something must have tripped them up along the way.
Well, tonight we're starting to find out what that is. It started with Lily's love of boots and Marshall's new corporate law job, and now its spreading to an apartment that's in a neighborhood that no one ever wants to live in. What's next? Sexual inadequacy?
Kids who deal drugs? Clinton-esque side nookie? The mind boggles at the thought.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Dowisetrepla
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