How I Met Your Mother: What went wrong with it?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — How I Met Your Mother
TMC-4 — 9 years ago(December 15, 2016 01:59 PM)
Was it just the ending? Was it the whole season? Should the creators have maybe been a little less fixated with their Ted and Robin ending?
And do you agree that the title
How I Met Your Mother
was really a mistake? It made you think that the most important thing about the show was meeting the mother, when it was actually Ted's supposed growth as a character. -
chelpablo — 9 years ago(December 20, 2016 11:36 PM)
Me too.
I think what went wrong was that Barney had this good character development, and Barney and Robin had incredible chemistry, but the writers decided to stick to the Ted-Robin endgame ending they had in mind probably in the first season. -
MarblesLove — 9 years ago(December 21, 2016 09:41 AM)
I think that's the main thing that went wrong for me. Barney had such great character development and he and Robin had this amazing chemistry but then the writers decided to go with the ending they had probably wanted since season one or two even though it didn't really fit with the characters or story development anymore.
Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained. The end. -
mjn-seifer — 9 years ago(December 16, 2016 07:43 AM)
For me nothing went wrong with it. It made it's mistakes and the ending isn't really how I would have ended it (though I don't have an alternate ending of my own), but I'm still cool with what the ending was in the long run (mostly because I don't take it to mean that Ted never cared about the mother, like others seem to).
I don't view the title as a mistake in the long run, Ted's growth was part of how he met the mother - it's how he became the guy he needed to be in order to meet the mother and the show was still about how he met the mother (the choices he made and what happened to him lead towards him meeting the mother). The only time the title seems wrong is when there are episodes that don't put him on any path towards or even away from meeting the mother and are simply just something that happened to him and/or his friends. It is these episodes that make the title
Before I Met Your Mother
seem like a better choice - in fact, Ted even says "Before I Met Your Mother" in some episodes, but ultimately I think the true title of
How I Met Your Mother
works as well.
I can't take credit for
Before I Met Your Mother
it was said by at least one person on this board. -
Josh052784 — 9 years ago(December 21, 2016 09:33 PM)
The ending is great. If you followed the show from the beginning then you know that's how it should've ended. I actually believe that the writers did a fantastic job with Tracy and Ted's relationship and that she was his true love, but the fact that he ended up with Robin just makes sense.
I believe that the show really should've only gone five seasons. But since it went nine, I believe that the wedding should have only been the first two or three episodes, followed by a season of Ted and Tracy's relationship and time skips seeing the future of all of the other characters. -
mgreen9715 — 9 years ago(December 26, 2016 07:10 AM)
The final season and especially the last 5 minutes of the series ruined it period and it had all the chances to be a classic sitcom but the final season ruined that completely.
Him ending up with Robin makes sense? Did you not watch the past seasons where they went out of their way to show that Robin and Ted were two different people and did not work together? Yeah, made a LOT OF SENSE to shoehorn them together at the very end. -
RomanceNovelist — 9 years ago(December 26, 2016 08:57 PM)
I could easily accept that Ted and Robin ended up together had the writers not ruined it by having her date and marry Barney. If I were writing this, Robin would have ended up with Don and Ted with his wife. it would have been cute had Robin and Ted ended up coming back to each other. But the whole barney thing ruined it.
I loved watching Barney on the show but I hated his relationship with Robin. I felt like Robin was meant to be with Ted but the writers jumped the shark, Fonzi style, with Barney. I felt like they ruined Ted's character by turning him into a desperate joke, so most of the audience no longer cared who Ted ended up with by the end season.
Then they have his wife die leaving Ted a single parent, and a show about him rehashing how they met in the first place, except the children learn he was never really as in love with their mother as he was with Robin, the woman who rejected him over and over again.
The writers never allowed Ted to have any sort of happiness. Even at the end of the series. I think Ted should have ended up with his wife's room mate instead of the wife. She was pretty and they had chemistry. I rooted for Ted the entire run of the series, so I felt horribly let down that he didn't get everlasting happiness he so desperately sought throughout the series. Robin was awful to Ted, and made it clear that she could never fall in love with him. He deserved a better ending.
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pdlussier1 — 9 years ago(January 21, 2017 08:24 PM)
Mostly agree, except for the Barney part; my overall impression was much different
However, re:
I think Ted should have ended up with his wife's roommate instead of the wife. She was pretty and they had chemistry.
Are you talking about Cindy? If so, you do realize she was a lesbian?
Ignorance is bliss 'til it posts on the Internet, then, it's annoying. -
RomanceNovelist — 9 years ago(January 21, 2017 11:52 PM)
Yes, she did become a lesbian which was just bad writing. Why bring her back at all? I think she should not have been a lesbian and they should have ended up being together.
As far as Ted's love life, it was ruined at every turn. Lily sabotaging his relationships. Not getting married to Victoria because he chose to keep his friendship to Robin. Barney trying to sabotage his relationships when the opportunity arose. Robin getting in the way with both Victoria and Stella. Had Ted never considered Robin's feelings over stella's he never would have invited Stella's ex boyfriend and he and Stella would have ended up together. I never understood why the writers refused to give Ted a modicum of happiness. And why they let a woman who could never love him (Robin) ruin it for him every time.
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mjn-seifer — 9 years ago(January 22, 2017 09:46 AM)
I'm not sure how Cindy "becoming a lesbian" is bad writing, especially as it just seemed like she always was one, and just needed to realize that. They even made it look like her jealousy towards her "perfect" roommate was just her denial changing her crush on her into something else.
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pdlussier1 — 9 years ago(January 22, 2017 01:17 PM)
It was already clearly established that Cindy was a lesbian long before she was "brought back" (Season 6 Ep. 01). Can't say I agree with you one bit that having her being a lesbian is bad writing in any way. Also, she wasn't really brought back; rather, the portion we see her in later is the same time period as when she's initially introduced, but told from the "mother's" point of view.
Personally, I just don't see how or why anyone would think that she's the one Ted should end up with. Given their incredibly brief history together, which was anything but great, I just don't see the logic.
Is it that you like the actress that played Cindy, Rachel Bilson, and you wish she played a bigger role in the series (though not as the Cindy character per se)?
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RomanceNovelist — 9 years ago(January 22, 2017 01:42 PM)
That's just a personal preference on my part. Ted meets her at the school, they can't date because she's a grad student or whatever. I thought the actors had great chemistry together. The difference is that we see them interact.
I think the difference is that, the character who plays Ted's wife is thrown in as an afterthought in the last season. By the time she is introduced, I no longer care who he ends up with. It was too late to make me like her. We don't see Ted build a relationship with her, interact with her, then we learn she DIES and he goes right back to the woman who rejected him and broke his heart, and married his best friend. There's no pay off.
I dont' care about Ted's relationship with his wife because I never really saw them together, building a relationship. The audience has time to like the wife, and time to like Ted, but not enough time to like them together. She's great but she's separate from Ted. BACK TO MY ORIGINAL POINT: The writers treated Ted's character horribly and there was no payoff to finding out how ted met his wife/the kids' mother because we never get to see how they met, as we did with Ted's other relationships.
The wife spent more time with Lily than she did Ted, on screen. What was the point of that? Terrible writing.
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pdlussier1 — 9 years ago(January 22, 2017 01:59 PM)
I agree that the devs that take place from season 7 through the end can be jarring, and even deeply unsatisfying for many, and that caring for the "mother" isn't made easy for the audience (maybe even impossible).
I see where you're coming from re "the writers treated Ted's character horribly", but, and although there's truth in what you're saying, I'm not sure to what extent I agree with you if one considers that he's also the narrator and all that this implies
But there's no right or wrong here as we're dealing purely with personal preferences at this point, methinks.
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adam-176 — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 06:15 AM)
Depending on perspective, it was either keeping to the Ted / Robin ending decided in the first season, or developing the Barney / Robin relationship in such a way that it would have to be undone.
They could have kept the Ted / Robin ending without it feeling jarring if they hadn't spent so long building Barney and Robin as a couple. Similarly, they could have continued developing Barney and Robin if they'd ditched the Ted and Robin ending.
Unfortunately, they tied themselves to the ending by filming the scenes with the kids, so they ended up with two seasons of Barney and Robin build up that they knew they would have to undo somehow.
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