How to End a Sitcom: Thoughts on the Final Season of How I Met Your Mother

I’ve said before that I am a fan of How I Met Your Mother.  In fact, I’ve said it is one of the best comedies of the 21^st century and this generation’s Friends (and I’ll stand by those claims).  But critics have been a bit hard on this CBS hit, claiming it stayed too long as it wraps up its final season on its ninth year.  Now perhaps I didn’t feel the long delay of the never ending story of how Ted Mosby telling his children how he met their mother because I binge viewed the first half of the series one summer and have only been watching live for the past three years.  (If you want to see some mock rage about this see this amusing trailer that kicked off this season of his grown up kids reading him the riot act for this long delay:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u02vOZoI4Pw ).  But regardless, when the network announced the show’s cancelation I was not surprised, but I definitely didn’t breathe a sigh of relief as some did.   Instead, I looked forward to the last season with a mix of excitement and sadness that one approaches any favorite show’s closure.

Because I’m not always the most thorough television fan, I didn’t know beforehand the premise of the final season.  I had assumed we’d meet the mother early on (since the season finale of the eight season had her within arm’s reach of Ted) and that the final season would give viewers a glimpse into the start of their relationship.  I should have known better.  When the season started and I soon realized that the entire season would be one stretched out weekend (the weekend of Barney and Robyn’s wedding) leading up to the titular meeting of the mother, I was skeptical.  Even though I love wedding-themed episodes, I wasn’t sure there would be enough to work with and I felt like we’d lose out on getting to know the mother.  It turns out that this ending device is the appropriate one for the show.  First of all, there is plenty of comedic potential in a stretched out wedding weekend (from strip poker with your mother in law to a Canadian-themed rehearsal dinner).  Second of all, as a friend pointed out, there compressing one season into a single weekend allows for long-running in-jokes (“Thank you, Linus”).  But, most of all, it fits the show’s premise of delayed gratification.  Fans knew as they watched Ted embark on countless relationships over the years that it wasn’t going to end in a happily ever after, and yet they watched on.  In many ways, perhaps avid followers of the show should have always known to expect that final meeting on the very last episode.

Since the show is known for its flashbacks and flashforwards, the confinement of the season to the Farhampton Inn and one singular weekend doesn’t allow it to get tiresome.  Fans are rewarded with trips to the past and the revisiting/continuation of storylines (slap bet, anyone?) and a few poignantly placed flashforwards give viewers the glimpse into the future that the show itself will not provide in real time.  Further, a wedding is a perfect event for reuniting former cast members and fan favorites (like Barney’s family).    And, although Ted won’t met his future wife until the last episode, viewers do get to meet her (and watch her meet everyone of his friends before him), in almost every episode leading up to the end. 

So, all in all, I am really enjoying watching this show come to a close.  However, my giddy excitement about making it to the last episode has now turned to nervous apprehension after reading some conspiracy theory articles about how the show will end. Some predict that the reason Ted has been telling this long drawn out story of how he met the children’s mother is because she has long been dead, perhaps soon after they were born.  With textual evidence to support this prediction and the producer’s claiming that the final episode will be heartbreaking, I now wonder if these theories are right and if fans are in store for the most depressing sitcom finale ever. 

I guess the saving grace is that CBS is launching How I Met Your Dad next year so if this show leaves us depressed, hopefully the new spinoff can quickly lift our spirits and give us a new cast of quirky friends to entertain us for a half an hour a week.  (Although, if I’m a betting television scholar, I’d wager that the show will pale in comparison to its ancestor).

New Television Dramas That Just Might Stick Around for Awhile (NBC’s Blacklist & ABC’s Sleepy Hollow), and Others that Won’t

                                           

Usually I jump into new series with excitement, falling in love with even the poor-conceived-and-sure-to-be-canceled ones with the passion only a television scholar can offer.  However this year, as I’ve shared previously, I’ve been under-enthused about most of the new debuts. Still, it’s time to chime in with some thoughts on the new network dramas.

The only new drama that really sparked my interest early on this season was NBC’s Blacklist (and even so I still have episodes piling up in my DVR).   Although I always watch a handful of procedurals, my preference is always for more complex serials.  In order for a procedural to hold my attention it needs to be less episodic than the norm and have an overarching plot that is mysterious enough to earn my buy in.  The Blacklist did this.  Although on the ill-fated NBC network, the show has been successful.  (I predicted its renewal weeks ago and, sure enough, it has been renewed for a 2^nd season). 

The plot revolves around a former government agent, Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader), who supposedly turned to the dark side (selling national secrets and colluding with global terrorists and wrong-doers).  In the pilot episode he surrenders himself to the FBI under the agreement that he will only work with one agent, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), a newbie FBI profiler.  Reddington then begins working with the FBI, giving them information about various dangerous criminals that assists in their capture.  The men and women he feeds to the FBI are from his personal “blacklist,” a compilation of the global criminals he believes are truly dangerous to society, many of whom are unknown to the FBI.

Although the plot evolves in the traditional drama-per-week (one bad guy goes down predictably each week and one tragedy is prevented), Spader makes for a charismatic main character – one viewers are never 100% sure of whether to trust.  Boone also creates a sympathetic protagonist, haunted by her own past and eager (despite herself) for Red’s friendship.  The overarching plot that links the various episodes together works:  viewers, of course, want to know Reddington’s motivation for working with Keen & the FBI, but the other plotlines become even more compelling.  One narrative mystery revolves around Keen’s own husband who appears to have a secret past (and who, it seems for a series of episodes, may have acted as an assassin).  Another mystery revolves around Keen’s parents and their connection to Reddington.  And even Keen’s partner has a backstory that calls for unpacking.  So, so far so good.  I’ll tune in for my weekly installation of fast-paced action and intrigue.

A new show that aligns with my usual serial interests is Fox’s Sleepy Hollow.  This supernatural drama is a remake of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”    The premise is that Ichabod Crane, a soldier in the Colonial Army, beheads a Hessian soldier in 1781, creating the Headless Horsemen who then kills him in return.  Centuries later, in modern day Sleepy Hollow, New York, Ichabod rises from his grave after the Headless Horseman returns to the area. 

The show has a Fringe/Lost-ish feel with a complex mythology.   Ichabod begins working with Lieutenant Abbie Mills after she witnesses the beheading of her mentor and partner.   While the show is a bit heavy handed in the culture-clash motif that runs throughout the episodes (Ichabod from pre-Civil War America working with Abbie, a professional black woman in post-Civil Rights Era America), the relationship works well enough to keep the show going.  However, it is really the complicated, mystical explanation for the return of the Horseman that finds me interested.  (Although, if I’m being honest, I’ve only been a distracted viewer of the show; I’ll have to return and watch each episodes in their entirety since the show is now here to stay, having been renewed for a second season).  The Headless Horseman, a stand in for Death, is revealed as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and so soon the mission to stop the killing spree is not really your typical run of the mill save-the-day type of plot, but more so the save-the-world type of plot.

There were, of course, plenty of other drama debuts this fall but I’m not confident that many more of them will earn their renewal status.  The vampire trend continues with the launch of NBC’s Dracula and the CW’s The Originals (a sequel to the largely popular The Vampire Diaries).  I have yet to be motivated to watch an episode of the former (and it looks like I may not ever need to as its ratings are predicting a cancelation), and I’m far behind in the latter (although it may ride on the coattails of its ancestor text and find renewal, which would be fine as I feel the series has enough to offer).

Other shows that are hanging out in my DVR player unwatched at present include Fox’s Almost Human, ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of Shield, and ABC’s Once Upon a Time in Neverland.  As a J.J. Abrams creation, I look forward to trying out Almost Human and would venture a guess that it could make it to renewal.  I was less than impressed by the debut of Agents of Shield, but all the Joss Whedon fans remind me that his shows often start up slow.  But for the life of me I can’t get myself to watch an episode of either Once Upon a Time in Neverland or Once Upon a Time (its predecessor) this fall.  Perhaps when I do I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I think I’m just burnt out on the premise. 

So tune in next year to see if my predictions hold true for the shows I claim have a future and see if my reluctance to dive in fully to the others is any indication of those shows’ longevity.