I would argue that they could've pulled off the ending (Mom dead, Ted to Robin) to far less scorn had they structured that final season differently. By making it all about Barney and Robin's wedding, they minimized Milioti and focused on that as a red herring.
The show has never had a problem dealing with surprise death. But by spending so much of season nine on something that was so irrelevant to the ending they planned on, fans felt this was a bridge too far. On Jul 8, 2014 3:48 PM, "PGage" <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 6:32 AM, Joe Hass <hassgoc...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I get what you're saying. The show that *immediately* popped into my head >> after you mentioned the difference between binge watching and traditional >> watching was "Friends". I wonder how a binge viewer would react to the >> final three seasons of that show (everything after Rachel is pregnant and >> Chandler and Monica's wedding), which to me was borderline unwatchable. >> >> Rereading the thread, I saw I didn't add either of Alan Sepinwall's >> reviews: >> >> >> http://m.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/series-finale-review-how-i-met-your-mother-last-forever-how-they-conned-us-all >> >> >> http://m.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/the-how-i-met-your-mother-finale-revisited-how-i-regret-the-mother >> >> I think those two items are the definitive takes from the disapprove camp. >> > > Interesting. I pretty much absolutely and totally disagree with everything > the Sepinwall writes in the first linked review (have not read the second > one) - except that of course I agree about how great and perfect Milioti > was in that role. > > One way in which I seem to differ from most of what I have read from fans > and critics of this show over the last 12 hours or so is that so many > people seem to have really loved the Robin character. I found her by far to > be the least interesting and compelling of the 5 main characters, and at no > time did I really want Ted to wind up with her. I liked her best when she > was with Barney, and one of my two main disappointments was the ending was > that they did not stay together - either in or some kind of modern > post-marriage relationship. > > [And now comes the most explicit of spoilers, just in case] > > > > > > > > > Of course I respect the views of those who loved the show and hated the > ending, but I can't help suspecting that this is a function of hating the > fact that people we love often (make that always) die. This is perfectly > captured in this quote from the Sepinwall article above: "the two of them > (Thomas and Bays) had actually gone through with this horrible, horrible > plan for the Mother to be dead in 2030...". If you fall in love with > someone when you are 35, and they die 16 years later, when you are 51, that > would be horrible (horrible), but it would hardly be unusual or > implausible. I don't understand how a show about love and relationships can > be accused of giving the middle finger to its fans because it is revealed > that the character who most wanted to be in love with "The One", did fall > in love, and lived happily for 16 years with her, until she died - unless > what is really meant is that fans (human beings) are accusing God (not the > writers of the sitcom) of giving all of us a fuck you for ending the tragic > and comic stories of all of our lives in death. That I understand. > > I wonder if people would have been as pissed if mother had died in the > same way, but Ted had not gotten back together with Robin? Is part of the > anger that it feels like Ted is betraying Mother, who we were led to > believe was the love of his life? But then, it seems like a lot of what I > have read is that fans wanted Ted and Robin to get together all along (I > did not). I found this ending satisfying thematically - it resolves the > opposing positions of Barney's cynical hedonism on the one hand and Ted's > romantic idealism on the other. No, there is not just a single "The One" > that we are destined to love and grow old with - there is an array of > possible "Ones", some of which are actualized by come combination of our > choice and blind luck. Ted's kids know this, and give him permission to > find another One; the fans of the show were less able than Ted to listen to > those kids. > > For me the main miss in that finale was the call back to the blue horn, > which was too pat and too predictable for the show. I was expecting some > kind of twist on that - some kind of wry or knowing comment on how the love > of mature old friends who have been through so much is likely (if they are > lucky) to be much different than the love of callow youth. > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... 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