These aren't real people
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post-orgasmic-mood — 9 years ago(May 18, 2016 01:28 AM)
What I found to be most unrealistic was the amount of time these 5 unique, independant, working people hung out together. I have friends that I maybe see once a month, best friends maybe once a week - but every night in a bar? No way could they find that much time and not get utterly sick of the sight of each other or run out of money!!
No power in the verse can stop me -
bigdog-65546 — 9 years ago(May 18, 2016 05:06 AM)
Your post was very well written, but I think the big point here isit's a TV show that is meant to be funny. Very funny in fact. I love the fact that it's not ground in reality. Or any "normal" reality. That's why we watch TV and movies. It's entertainment. It's a way for us to escape the fact that real life basically sucks. For 22 minutes at a time, we don't have to pay bills, or get up for work, or fix dinner, or run the kids all over hell's half acre. We're hanging out at McLaren's with the gang. We're drinking a beer and hanging out with "the gang". That was the magic of this show and it's cast and crew. They made us believe that five friends in my age range could live normal lives that are anything but normal. And make it hilarious in the process. And if you think King of Queens is grounded in reality, try picturing a fat postal delivery guy marrying a gorgeous, albeit underachieving legal secretary and they can afford a nice house like that in Queens. And afford to eat out every night. Just doesn't happenexcept on TV, where it's supposed to.
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stargazer_1682 — 9 years ago(May 27, 2016 06:10 PM)
I've always felt that the first two seasons had the characters much more grounded and realistic; and on the very rare occasions they wanted to do something more outlandish, they "hung a lantern on it" by having Future Ted say something like, "Now, I wasn't there, but so-and-so swears this is what happened;" and in return you can basically assume that it wasn't actually how it happened, and that the people who told Ted otherwise were embellishing, and it's just amusing to consider the blatant lie.
As the show went on though, things got more surreal, the characters started becoming caricatures of themselves. Marshall seemed to get dumber. Everyone became more selfish and self-obsessed. Where Barney started as just a clueless douchebag, who no one really took most of his exploits seriously; suddenly his "legendary" lifestyle became a literal one, and many of his ploys became incredibly creepy, and in several cases presumably illegal. I mean, for Christ sake, he posed as a doctor to have sake with his fake patience; and then supposedly posed as a class action attorney representing those victims against himself, so he could sleep with them again.
Lily was actually fairly tolerable and reasonable through the majority of season 1. Her choice at the end of season 1 is questionable, but not out entirely out of bounds from real life (and being that she was modeled after Craig Thomas' wife, I want to say may have been based on a real event; like Ted calling Lily a "Grinch" was). After she came back, starting in season 2 and just getting worse the rest of the series, she basically becomes a manipulative sociopath.
Ted I don't know Ted was definitely a more tolerable person in the first two seasons, and after those seasons the show didn't seem as anchored to him as much as it should have been. He's a bit outlandish with his aggressive and stubborn pursuit of Robin, a fact that he's ultimately rewarded for that persistence being one of the many problems I have with the final episode. Overall he essentially takes the "Ross Gellar" character path, as he gets more and more desperate with each passing season, with fewer redeeming or human-like qualities.
Robin in season 1 is almost unrecognizable compared to the rest of the series; she's a lot more girly, not
quite
as abrasive. She's still fairly well written as a normal human in season 2 though; it's just that, the way others have reasoned the changes is that season-1 Robin is Ted's idealized version of Ted, as he remembers her from that first year, whereas once their together, the rose-colored glasses start to come off and he - and the audience - gradually sees her for who she really is. And in comparison to the others, she may have remained closest to her more grounded origins, but still with her share of crazy traits arbitrarily added to her character. They beat the dead horse of her being a Canadian pop-star far too often; along with the slap bet premise.
Canada - What you get if America and Britain had a baby, they abandoned in the snow. -
mjn-seifer — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 07:58 AM)
In my opinion, they are realistic enough to be relatable and grounded in reality, but are exaggerated enough for the purpose of being characters in a television series. The way the main characters act is for the most part grounded in reality, but comically exaggerated, and the same goes with their "adventures" - the majority of them could happen in real life, if not all of them, at least at first, but they are played with by the writers to make them more "interesting" for TV, or simply to make more of a story for something that we could see easily in real life. I think How I Met I Your Mother does a great job of creating a show which has relatable realism, yet is able to stretch things enough to make a storyline, but doesn't go too far. Some episode have extreme moments - "The Burning Beekeeper" for example soon ends up going over the top (not that any of the more TV like things in this episode couldn't happen in real life, ever), but the ultimate format of the episode is ultimately something that people from the real world can relate to; throwing a party, and coping with it going wrong.
I think the best example of what I'm talking about is the episode where "the gang" is out of ideas to throw Barney a memorable bachelor party, so they decide to make his day suck and then surprise him at the end with a cameo from that Karate Kid actor. A lot of comedy potential there, but they play it so seriously and emotionally, as if such a thing could realistically happen to a normal group of friends living in NYC.
An exaggerated storyline yes, but if you knew the right people, this is still within the realms of possibility. It is less likely than other storylines, (and they even play up the fact that what they're doing is not very plausible), but ultimately the only real stretch is that they managed to get both Karate Kid actors, and they got the Chinese guys to play along - and even those aren't completely unrealistic, because the Karate Kid actors are still real people, and it's not impossible to get them if you know how, just difficult, and the Chinese guys knew Barney, so it wasn't like just picked some random people.
most people aren't BFFs with a semi-famous news anchor
Yet it's still possible to be, so it doesn't seem like a stretch in reality to me (not to mention they knew her when she was starting out, and she only really got semi-famous towards the later seasons). I'm sure most people haven't sat in on several live radio shows in an actual radio station, for training purposes either, yet in around 2013 I did exactly that. Ultimately, it's not so much what the characters are doing as much as it is the characters themselves. You could do a show about characters who are supposed to be actual celebrities, and the show would still be grounded in realism, because even celebrities are people at the end of the day, and still have normal problems once you scratch the surface of everything, which isn't even that hard to do if you think about it. -
stargazer_1682 — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 11:56 AM)
I would add that it's not exactly reasonable to conclude unequivocally that they were getting together every single day at the bar. It only seems so frequent, because it's where many of the stories are taking place, but that doesn't mean they're there every day. To take that reasoning in the other direction, just because we have infrequent references to them using the bathroom, it doesn't mean those are the only times they do it; it just means those were the only instances of note. Similarly, the setting of the bar just happened to be the place where the more interesting facets of their lives took place; and the periods between those get togethers were of less consequence, and therefore less likely pertain to noteworthy story. Time is relative in this type of narrative; look no further than "Three Days Snow" for an example where a story that seemed to all take place in one day, turned out to be spread over three days.
Add to that the fact that three-fifths of the group lived together, above said bar; and their close association and the bar itself being a central hub for their lives isn't all that unrealistic. Certainly not for a group of 20-sometings, living in New York.
"I'm in it for the power and the free robes." - Harry Stone -
Petit88 — 9 years ago(November 23, 2016 12:40 PM)
Let
s say they work from 9 - 5, come to "the apartment" straight after work and hang out for about 1 hour than dine together. After it they go to "the bar" for a drink or two from 8 - 10, they have plenty of time to sleep from 11 to 8. But of course I always thought its obvious they hangout few times through week, on the weekend and on work stories are shown less because what we see are weeks highlihgts. I dont even mind little exagarations, but come on when they search the best burger they order at one place and go to another without eating what they paid for. They see Stella, hide under the table and after it Ted decides to talk to her so they go away without eating because "he has to do this" = double facepalm.
Also I understand having your favourite place, especially if its so close to the 3/5s of "the gang", but come on living in N.Y.C. and almost ALWAYS going to the same place. Especially a womanizer whos only objective in life is to go out and chase bimbos.