Monsters of Television

“Giddy-waitforit-[neighwhinnystomp]-up!”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being immersed in film studies, television studies, and media studies for a number of years now, it’s that your own baggage, personal or theoretical, always comes with you to whatever you’re studying. In fact, any text is like that tree/cave thing on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back: What’s in there is only what you take with you.

I make that simile for two reasons. Reason number 1 is I think it nicely explains a person’s relationship with any text that they approach, be it a film, a book, a television show, a piece of music, whatever. Reason 2 is that the simile probably didn’t work for everyone. They may not have seen The Empire Strikes Back and thus have no idea what I’m talking about (which is I why I provided that handy link to Wookiepedia), thus limiting their ability to relate to my simile, which weakens my overall argument.

But that, dear readers, is how I felt about last’s night episode of How I Met Your Mother: an analogy that worked for most but kept me bogged down like that swamp that swallowed Luke’s X-wing in The Empire Strikes Back.

Read more »

“I guess she caught some of the Big Fudge Fever.“

So after a mythology episode, the show settles into a easy breezy episode that is low on Barney. (Harris was busy directing the episode, and with a show like this, I imagine trying to be in front of the camera while you’re behind it would be a night-waitforit-mare! Nightmare!) The missing Barney did throw the episode’s dynamics off a bit (maybe he and Jenkins had sex in the copy room?), and in a noticeable way (unlike, say, when Lily was gone for the tail end of last season). All awesome things in moderation, but to go without is just silly. (Though, I’m sure Pamela Fryman enjoyed the week off.)

To keep things balanced, the episode pairs off the remaining characters and stories. First up is Marshall regaling the group with stories of the wild Jenkins, a new member of the GNB team. As we see the stories through Ted’s imagination, Jenkins is a fat fellow, willing to chug a jar of cherries, gyrate behind the CFO, and strip at a bar. Turns out that Jenkins is Amanda Peet (remember her?). Marshall realizes he’s never told Lily that Jenkins is a woman (like Ted, Lily thinks Jenkins is a man), and suddenly feels very self-conscious about the stories he’s been telling.

These feelings lead Ted and Robin (though clearly this should’ve been Barney) explaining the idea of the Reacher and the Settler in the relationship. The Reacher is someone who aims for a partner out of their league, and the Settler is, well, someone who settles for someone less hot than themselves. Marshall is the Reacher, of course, and Lily is the Settler. When Lily meets Jenkins and is nonplussed by Jenkins’ hotness because, well, she doesn’t have to worry about Marshall cheating on her because she’s the Settler (though, I would worry, given that he’s a Reacher, he’d reach for someone hotter…).

The problem with Lily and Marshall is also the reason I like their relationship: It’s realistic. They’re the happy couple you know that has always persevered through fights and overcome differences to be stronger for it. They’re stable, and that makes them different than most relationships you see on television. Even relationships that are supposedly stable are prone to one member of the couple freaking out about something every other episode (I’m thinking of Monica and Chandler here). Narratively this makes it difficult for Marshall and Lily to have a believable conflict, and I never really bought the conflict here. It’s still amusing, but I feel something meatier might be necessary to really get a solid comedic conflict between them.

The B-plot wasn’t riveting either, but it has given rise to me working on creating a drinking game for the show. Ted, dismayed to realize his students don’t think he’s cool, but they all seem to know Robin because they all watch her awful show. They’ve even developed a fairly limited drinking game. Each time Robin says “But, um”, the students take a shot. It’s a funny but not totally worthwhile plot that leads to Robin attempting to give the students alcohol poisoning by purposefully repeating the drink phrase over and over again.

It’s a funny enough episode, and a nice breather after the mythology heaviness of “Girls Vs. Suits.” Next week sounds like a Barney-heavy episode, while the next two seem Ted-centric. I won’t lie about being excited by the prospect.

FINAL THOGUHTS

• My HIMYM Drinking Game
  • Take a sip for each flashback
  • Do a shot for each flashback within a flashback (you thought I was letting you off easy with the first one, didn’t you?)
  • Do 2 shots for a Mother fake-out
  • Do 2 shot when someone explains dating/social rules (like Settlers and Reachers)
  • Do 2 shots whenever Barney disparages Canada
  • Do a shot when Robin is oblivious
  • Do a shot when Ted tries to be cool (wearing spectacles totally counts)
  • Do a shot when Lily disapproves of something
  • Do a shot when Marshall references his family or Minnesota
  • Finish your drink any time someone says “Awesome.”

I’ll take other recommendations. Leave ’em in the comments!

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t make it work.”

I’ve been having problems with HIMYM this season. The Barney/Robin debacle was not an major issue for me in regards to how the show’s writers dealt with the break-up (though they did handle it fairly poorly). Indeed, the Barney/Robin issue was only a symptom of a larger issue that has been be plaguing this season: Where the hell is Ted?

I understand the need to highlight other stories, and I do enjoy them, but for someone telling a story about himself, Future Ted sure is happy to ignore his own story for the sake of his friends’ stories (in which he may only tangentially involved). HIMYM excels at delaying their narrative (Bays and Thomas should’ve been writing for Lost) in any number of ways, but still rewarding the audience (be it a goat, how clothes got dirty, etc.). The story of meeting the mother, however, has been less successful, I think, in large part, because we can’t properly formalize an idea behind who she will be or when she and Ted will actually meet.

Yes, we’ve gotten the yellow umbrella and the fact that she was in the economics class Ted thought was his architecture class (among a couple of more, I think), but there’s not enough to fully engage in, nothing that gives me a reason to become invested again. I understand that, like Lost, HIMYM is at the disposal of a network that isn’t particular interested in letting a successful show end (again, like Lost, HIMYM would benefit immensely from an announced end date). So, needless to say, I was excited about this, the 100th episode of the show. The musical number is something to be excited about it, but I was more eager about  the “serious mother action” promised by Craig Thomas.

And it was largely more of the same. Read more »