How I Met Your Mother

[Super-Rye]

I finally watched it and I liked how it ended.

I thought the biggest problem was that all the things that happened in the last episode should have played out during the season. They basically wasted the whole season using the wedding as filler then put all the important stuff into an episode.

I felt no emotional connection with Ted's wife for instance. Had they played out their relationship this season and then ended it with her getting sick and dying it would have been an much more powerful ending.

[fatso]

I liked the finale.

The show had become pretty terrible in the last couple years, and by no means was the finale 'good' tv. However, the notion that the story was really Ted talking himself, and his kids, into pursuing Robin made a lot of sense to me. After all, the story started with meeting Robin, being together, separating, and then finally Ted letting go of Robin and his very limited ideas of what love and family really are. It was only then that he could finally be open to meeting Tracy though, arguably, there were a few 'Tracies' prior.

It seems to me this was the point of the show. When the show started, they were all starting on their lives as adults. With the exception of Barney (I think), at various times they were all dissatisfied with the direction of their lives, believing they weren't where they were meant to be.

Marshall was unhappy doing corporate law, Lily still wanted to be an artist, Robin wanted to be a serious media personality and, obviously, Ted was dissatisfied with his personal life. In the end, they got to where they wanted to be or at least a place of happiness - not by forcing it but by simply experiencing life and their circumstances. In Ted's case, the lesson was that there is no 'one' person for anyone or any set path for romantic love. It's about the experience, journey, and the people along the way, and learning to enjoy those things, and not necessarily the endpoint.

I never got the feeling that Tracy was just a 'placeholder' for Robin, which some people complain of. I think that is a superficial viewing of the show and places too much emphasis on the last episode, and ignore the last 9 years. I agree, though, it was rushed down the stretch and this probably contributed to that feeling. It also didn't help that the kids reaction that Ted should pursue Robin, just after we learned Tracy had died, seemed so cold and cavalier. Had that moment been more heartfelt between the kids and Ted I think it would have been easier to reconcile Ted's love for Tracy with his love for Robin.

I also thought Barney's scene with his newborn, and his change, was terribly contrived, hacky, and lazy writing.

[strombad]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

And really it's about a TV show dude, so we have different tastes, you need to get over it and accept not everyone agrees with you.

That's exactly what I've been trying to say to you. Glad you figured it out in your own distorted way.

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Its a sitcom. People watch it to laugh and enjoy the characters. Not for characters they love dying and non-cliches stories, complex. If this was a dramatic show... kill the mother and I'll give it a fair shot. In a sitcom - give me the happy cliched ending.

It wouldn't have even bothered me had she died. We don't NEED the ending to be all roses and cheese, but you do want to have an ending that was honest and true to all that preceded it. Unfortunately, we didn't get that.

[strombad]

Here's a good article ( by an actual critic, not friends who are 'aspiring' critics :P ) that outline the problem with the finale, and the misconception those who liked it have about those who don't:

http://www.tv.com/m/shows/how-i-met-...-139631234469/

I stand by my assertion that Ted and Robin shouldn't have ended up together—not because I believe Ted didn't deserve to move on after the Mother died (as many fans have suggested)—but because the series didn't put in the effort to deserve that happy ending. How I Met Your Mother made a very big show of Ted letting go of Robin, and the whole point of that was to ensure he was finally able to open his heart to the Mother when he met her. If the series had spent an entire season building up to the moment with Robin and the blue french horn, instead of to a marriage that would ultimately fail after only three years, I don't think I'd have felt so betrayed when it finally happened.

An alternate "happy ending" being released on DVD:

http://m.deadline.com/2014/04/how-i-...-finale-happy/

I have learned that the controversial sequence was not the only conclusion the HIMYM writers considered. I hear creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas also contemplated an alternate ending, which will be included in HIMYM‘s upcoming DVD set. I hear the alternate ending does not involve additional footage but rather a different editing of the episode. HIMYM producers and studio 20th Century Fox TV would not comment on any specifics of the alternate closing, but a source described it as a “happy ending.”

How I Met Your Dad?

http://ww2.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blo...eing-the-worst

Fans of the series disappointed by the finale – and they are legion – may take solace in the fact that the show’s spinoff, How I Met Your Dad, is still in the works. That show will star indie darling Greta Gerwig as Sandy, a woman whose marriage falls apart and who must rely on her friends for support. According to Vulture, the show shares many of HIMYM’s qualities, but is nonetheless “a more straight-forward love story” – which could bode well for those rubbed the wrong way by Monday night’s bait-and-switch.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Mike F

Well, here's an actual respected TV critic who hated it for the reasons most here have cited.

Nice job coming coming across like a complete smart ###. He has a point, but I personally think it's cool that they committed to a conclusion right from the beginning. It wasn't too far out that it was unbelievable. Unless you genuinely bought into Barneys forced character development.

[ernie]

Matter of opinion hat they weren't working up to the ending they provided. My opinion is that the critic is incorrect and they did put the work in to lead up to that ending.

To me the ending made perfect sense. Perhaps I was one of the few but I always figured the mother had passed away as that made the most sense for why the father was telling the story. It also never rang completely true that it was about how he met the mother given, as the daughter points out, it had really nothing to do with the mother. Rather it had to do with Ted and his relationships. The concentration on Robin throughout the series, to me, makes the ending make perfect sense.

And honestly I think it's clever. Now you can look back on the series and realize there is a REASON for the meandering story that never actually gets to the point. That reason is Ted is avoiding the actual reason for the conversation by going off on all these tangents. He's scared to have this conversation with the kids.

In the end it's a story about how Ted and Robin got to where they are in life, and given where they are now why it might actually work. It doesn't diminish what he clearly had with the mother. At all. You have two individuals who have changed and grown through the experiences they had and after all the experiences it provides the correct time for them get together. If I didn't witness something very similar with a couple of friends perhaps I'd be in disbelief but I have. And it makes sense to me.

[manwiches]

Lyndsy Fonseca. That is all

[CaptainCrunch]

I really liked her in the first kicka$$ movies, but she only had a very minor role in the second one.

But yeah, she's hot.

[JiriHrdina]

The alternate ending (to be released on the DVD box set) has leaked online.
This is probably the way the show should have ended:

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/...leaks-20140906