Some thoughts on what became of 'How I Met Your Mother'

When ‘How I Met Your Mother’ began, it was a very clever show. It quickly shook off the immediate ‘Friends’ comparisons because it had an overlying mystery of love looming over it that made people want to keep tuning in every week for clues as to this elusive Mother is. It was fun and it was something that had never been seen before in the sitcom world.

Also, in its early days, it struggled for viewership. When it went on hiatus during season four for the writers’ strike, the writers speculated about what their contingency plan would be if they were cancelled, (they jokingly said the mother would have been the coat check girl) which was a strong possibility at the time.

But then they started getting viewers, lots of them. With the help of reruns airing on cable and Netflix they actually gained viewers in its later years (which is extremely rare for any type of television show). Seeing that the show was really profitable now, CBS decided to keep extending it. This through off the writers’ original plan that the show would end with Ted meeting the Mother and there would be no more.

The popularity caused a major problem for this plan. With CBS renewing them one year at a time, they would have no way of knowing when the finale would be or how to lead up to it. With literally a hundred more episodes to fill than they would have expected, all of the sudden they needed to figure out a way to make new stories without diverging from their original plan, thus creating many, many filler episodes and plotlines that were really forced (I’m looking at you Zoe).

If they could do it over again, I think and hope they would have done it differently. They reached the point of no return about not introducing The Mother earlier in the series run and really handcuffed their ability to tell fresh stories.

****FINALE SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FINALE AND DON’T WANT IT SPOILED, STOP READING NOW****

So why was the finale so abysmal in my opinion? They completely undercut the original story and cheated us, and Ted Mosby’s children, of the romantic story this show was originally built around. If you don’t remember, Ted Mosby used to be Mr. Romantic. This was supposed to be the story of a nice guy, who had great friends, just trying to find the love of his life. That’s the story that we were presented with, and that’s the story I wanted to see.

I didn’t want to see Barney have a dog as his wingman. Or Robin be unnecessarily mean to a coworker who liked her. I wanted to see Ted get the woman of dreams after many hardships and have his friends help get him to that place. Obviously any time a show gets stretched out for as long as ‘HIMYM’ did, the characters have to change, otherwise it will become stale. But after season 4 they really began to sell out on many gags and started going back to well far too often for some of the running jokes.

I still think ‘How I Met Your Mother’ was a very successful sitcom, but I’ll always wonder what could have been if this story had been told in the amount time (or altered to accommodate a longer life) that was originally intended.

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Slapsgiving 3: Slappapointment in Slapmarra’

Picture of Segel regretting signing on for a ninth season.

There were more than a few slaps going around in ‘Slapsgiving 3: Slappapointment in Slapmarra.’ Unfortunately, though, several of them were inflicted on myself as the front of my hand kept finding itself raising up towards my eyes and covering them in a facepalm-esque manner. This was a truly painful episode to watch, from a complete lack of plot and character usage to utter lack of execution of a gag that once had so much promise.

As far as the latter goes, I’m really disappointed by the way the writers have gone about Marshall giving the slaps ever since the third one. What made the first slap so great was this ridiculous premise of making a bet that kept escalating until it ended with Barney taking his first slap of five that could be dealt out any place, at any time. My personal favorite was the second slap because it was so unexpected, and deserving, and set the table for what I thought the future slaps will be like.

After the first “Slapsgiving” the gag started seeing diminishing returns, especially since they tried to make every one a spectacle and base an entire episode around it. As cool as it was to see Boyz II Men perform a cover of ‘You Just Got Slapped’ I thought the whole buildup was far too childish to be funny and I wish they had stuck to the original premise where Marshall would catch Barney, and the viewer, off guard. Maybe they can salvage the final slap by making it be a flash-forward where Marshall has built an elaborate “slap room” with his hand prints painted on the wall. With lights flickering Barney wakes up not knowing where he is, shaking and traumatized. Finally, Marshall appears behind him, slowly creeping up to him as the light bounces from his face to Barney’s. He raises up and one final the slap of justice comes down upon Barney’s face. Or, ya know, something like that.

But seriously, last season I would always post in my “other moments of note” section that “at least Barney didn’t have a dog as his wingman,” a point I considered an all-time low for the series. While parts of this episode, like a tree slapping Marshall, came close to this, it was able to avoid the complete stinker label. Hopefully, although I highly doubt it, this will be the last awful episode of the season.

Other moments of note:

• Was it just me or is Jason Segel looking really skinny?
• When was the last time we saw Carl the bartender? I feel like it’s been a while.
• At least Barney didn’t have a dog as his wingman. 

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Platonist’

 It’s entirely possible that the Bays and Thomas plan for this season was to set the bar so low at the onset of the never-ending wedding weekend so that they could put together episodes like ‘Platonist’ and the HIMYM faithful would praise it for returning to form. So I don’t want to praise this one too much based on what it’s being compared to but, by golly, that wasn’t half bad.

The episode opens in the drudgery of Farhampton where Robin is understandably grieving about her mother(*) not being able to make it to her wedding so Barney declares that it will be his mission to cheer her up and, as so often he does, accepts his own challenge. And while at this point I was very fearful that this would turn into another 23 minutes of stalling, it quickly turned into a complete flashback episode taking place 6 months prior to the wedding, giving us a much needed reminder of what this show used to be: an interesting premise about relationships with a moderate amount of jokes mixed in.

(*) I don’t see any scenario where her mother doesn’t end up before the end of the series, especially after the recurring joke that the rest of gang knows almost nothing about her.

The initial premise revolves around the idea that of whether anyone in the group is truly platonic friends with anyone else. Despite Ted’s best effort to insist that he and Robin are platonic, Barney explains how it wouldn’t even take him 20 minutes to get back with Robin if given the chance. In fact, Marshall and Robin are the only combination that would never happen and we see that Marshall would rather have MacLaren’s blow-up, with them inside of it, then have to kiss Robin. This theory gets Ted thinking and we spend a large portion of the episode him discussing his feeling on this Marshall. While I am completely over Ted/Robin storyline since we’ve known for eight years that they don’t ultimately get together, but it’s been a long time since we’ve had a Ted/Marshall hang-out and I really enjoyed the fact that they’re fans of the Washington Generals.

Meanwhile while Ted and Marshall were at the basketball game, Lily and Robin finally called Barney out on declaring challenges for himself that were relatively easy to accomplish. So in order to prove he could beat any challenge, he decides to marathon a bunch of them all in one night. As annoying as the first challenge was, picking up a girl while talking like a dolphin, it was fun to watch him try to accomplish them in a short period of time. And wisely they didn’t keep it a running theme throughout the episode as the girls quickly grew tired of it. Instead, Barney becomes the second member of the group (well technically first since chronologically he met her before Lily) to meet The Mother. Apparantly this mystery woman can solve the world’s problems with ease, which is a little ludicrous, but it was a nice moment that she became the first challenge Barney couldn’t complete and it resulted in him realizing how much he wanted Robin.

As always, the show needs to utilize more of The Mother. It’s not a coincidence that the best episodes of the season have occurred with her in them. I’d really like to see a full flash-forward episode with her just hanging out with the group after she’s been integrated in, it has the potential for a great dynamic. All in all this was a very positive step in the right direction and hopefully we’ll get more episodes like this going forward.

Other moments of note:

• This episode also brought the return of Bryan Cranston as Hammond Druthers. It’s impossible not to love Cranston but he was given absolutely no material to work with here, it’s a huge credit to him that it wasn’t cringe-inducing to watch his scenes thanks to ability to really sell a joke. However, I did love the continuity of him still having his baseball that Lily once tried to steal to teach him a lesson.
• “I can say with absolute certainty that Brussels sprouts are the comeback vegetate of a century.” – Ted panicking to come up with an excuse.
• “But then we can haunt the bar for eternity like we always planned.” – Marshall weighing the pros and cons of the bar blowing up.
• One more swipe of the blue French horn in hypothetical world. I’ve completely lost track of how many times that thing has shown up.

How I Met Your Mother: ‘The Broken Code’

We’re 51 hours away from the wedding, and more importantly 51 hours away from putting this old dog of a show out of its misery. At this point we’re not doing good ol’ HIMYM any favors but letting it linger around, we’re selfishly keeping it by our side because we grew so fond of what it was in its prime and, despite better judgment, we’re hoping against hope that we can see one last trick, one last sparkle in its eye before it passes on. But the waiting is getting very, very painful.

The glaring problem is obviously the lack of Jason Segel. I’m assuming pat of his agreement to return for this final ninth season entailed an agreement that would allow for him to shoot movies, reminisce about Freaks and Geeks, or just try and detach his name as much as possible from this sinking ship of a show. But in the latter years here he’s often been the only source of laughter and it’s made the show that much worse to relegate to this awful road trip plot that absolutely no one asked for or wants to see. It would almost be better at this point if they didn’t give him any screen time until he can “arrive” at the wedding and just give us some more of ‘The Mother’ interacting with Ted in flash forwards.

What was especially annoying about ‘The Broken Code’ in particular is how rehashed both stories seemed. In the plot of Ted/Barney/Robin love triangle it’s literally been repeated time and time again and I’m not even sure if we’ve seen the last of it since it was alluded to early on that Ted went to visit Stella in Los Angeles to retrieve the missing locket. I just don’t understand what the writers think they can milk out of this. How many times can Ted come to the realization that Robin isn’t the right woman from him? And especially now that we have an actual visual image of ‘The Mother’ how do they expect to feel any real tension here? The whole thing comes off as total filler and a waste of time.

The other story involving Robin and her lack of female friends other than Lily was simply uninspired. We’ve seen lots of other sitcom characters and groups of friends talk about how very few friends they have outside of the main characters (which has more to do with actual practicality of keeping the cast small) so there was nothing new or groundbreaking here. The humor in Lily essentially being a crazy person which makes up for the Robin’s quantity of acquaintances was lost on me so we’ll just move on and chalk this up to a wasted episode as we head down the Mom stretch.

Other moments of note:

• Is Lily really one to critique Robin on her lack of other female friends? She’s not exactly a social butterfly either.
• Are they seriously going run this “thank you Linus” joke that far beneath the ground? Considering these episodes are taking place over several hours she has to be close to blacking out.
• Billy Zabka and Tim Gunn had fairly fun cameos at the poker table but I’m skeptical of the dubious ending which implies we haven’t seen the end of Zabka. Also, since when has the gang become so casual about running into celebrities like Tim Gunn? Ted doesn’t even bat an eye about him being there.
• I’m glad they kept the continuity of Marshall always winning at games, even in pillow form.

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Ring Up’

 I’m beginning to think that the good episodes of How I Met Your Mother, or what qualifies for “good” these days, are dependent on whether or not Marshall is getting enough screen time/getting quality jokes. For whatever reason he’s pretty much been on reserve this season(*) and has existed as a sounding board to Robin, Barney, and Ted’s love problems. A lot of this is because he and Lily have a newborn but the newborn related humor has been lacking to say the least until last night.

(*)The notable exception being the episodes where he fought Brad over the pond filled with toxic chemicals. But I do think those were two of the better episodes of the season.

Now ‘Ring Up’ wasn’t the most fantastic showing HIMYM has ever served up, but the risks they took were low, the jokes were good enough, and there wasn’t much to complain about in terms of character and story development. I really enjoyed Marshall’s dedication to swoon Lily by wearing the wrist band that he was highly allergic to, as well as his quick descent in personality to match his wristband. Not to mention how the wristband was introduced with Ted walking into the bar explaining how he miraculously saved an elderly woman’s life but all the gang cared about was making fun of how ridiculous it looked on him.

The main story though revolved around Ted’s new date who is both only 20 years old and Barney’s half-sister. After hanging out at places(**) and with people  that Ted would otherwise have no interest associating with, he’s all but ready to call things off, until of course Barney convinces him to hook-up with her as he’s going through “withdrawal.” This one kind of got out of hand as Barney tries to forcefully wed Ted and his sister, but at the end he comes to the conclusion that meaningless hook-ups are not what he’s about anymore and he simply makes Ted *wink wink* promise to never get with his sister again.

(**)Including a club in Chinatown that is somehow located under a manhole cover. I’m just about 100% sure Bill Hader’s Stefon knows exactly where that is.

Robin meanwhile is going through similar withdrawal as Barney since she loses her “get whatever she wants, whenever she wants” status once the engagement ring is on her finger. I’m glad this story didn’t much time devoted to it because it had a few good moments but it could have gotten annoying fast had it been the main focus of an episode. I will say though that I have hard time caring about the Robin and Barney moments of clarity when they realize how much they want to be with the other person for the rest of their lives seeing as how we already know they both get cold feet at their future wedding.

Other favorite moments:

• “Okay normally New York is the friendliest, most affordable city in the world. Now it’s a rude and expensive as San Francisco.” – Robin’s delusional interpretation based on her pre-ring observations.
• “Better the sore weep than I.” – Marshall’s sad justification that a giant hand is his best chance to have sex with his wife.
• Barney didn’t have a dog as his wingman.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Band or DJ?’

I have to say that ‘Band or DJ’ fell in the better half of season 8 episodes thus far; although the qualifications for that title sit at finding at least 1.5 humorous moments. A lot of the credit for that humor goes to Ray Wise playing Mr. Scherbatsky. I’d be very interested in a spin-off show where Ray Wise just discusses the internet: “You familiar with memes?”… “I can haz cheeseburger?” The rest of that story kind of faltered though as HIMYM continues to tell us that we know Barney and Robin are meant for each other as opposed to actually showing us why this is the case.

The actual bad or dj storyline also fell in the average range, but it never made any sense to me from the beginning as this seemed like a “we don’t have anything else for the other three characters this week so let’s let them make this decision as opposed to the actual bride and groom to be.” The culmination of the story was really well done though as Lily and Ted force themselves to deal with the real problems that are their mind, albeit ones that are extremely uncomfortable to admit giving the selfish nature of them.

Also, it looks like HIMYM has really pinned themselves into a corner now by proclaiming that Robin and Barney’s wedding will be in four months, which will in all likelihood be the season finale. Seeing as the season 9 pick-up is almost a certainty right now it looks like they won’t have a choice but to add “the mother” to the cast next year. Unless of course they do something very HIMYMy and come up with some excuse as to why we won’t be meeting her just quite yet. Ugh.

Other favorite moments:

• Maclarens has chili? Looked pretty out of place when Ted was eating it at the beginning of the episode.
• “Dude’s a stone cold Slytherin.”
• “Barney has cameras in our bathroom?” … “Well, I mean, don’t you think?”
• Barney didn’t have a dog as his wingman.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Lobster Crawl’

“I’m getting too old for this shit.” It’s the line Barney played off of for a joke in the episode but it also rings true for the series as a whole (*). I get the impression from watching this season that just about everyone has gotten “too old” for the show and the actors and writers would really like to move on from the well that has been dried out for quite some time now.

(*) Not to mention the fact that they devoted an entire episode to this quote earlier on HIMYM’s run when Ted and Barney debated over the Murtaugh list and whether or not they were too old to be doing certain things.

The stories weren’t actually that horrible. It’s nice to watch Barney come to realizations of what he wants in life by having an actual real date with Patrice. And Lily and Marshall realizing their friend has a hole in his life now that he completed one of his major life goals. But the way that they go about setting up the climaxes to the endings of the stories has become so annoying that the payoffs fall flat time and time again. And I’m pretty sure this is at least the third time Barney has had this life changing epiphany; can it please just stick this time?

If I’m wrong about this, and people on the show do actually want to try and turn things around, then they need to stop selling out their characters and rely less on sight gags and more on wit and charm that made this show so great back in the day. The “cut to” jokes are getting way too much like Family Guy would do. Robin blowing up from her refusal to accept her allergies to lobster was just so bad. Also, they have to tone the characters down, especially Lily. Louder does not equal funnier.

Favorite moments:

• In the background of a flashback, college freshman Ted is trying to explain to Marshall that you need to smell the wine before drinking it was pretty funny.
• Barney didn’t have a dog as his wingman.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Twelve Horny Women’

Another fairly solid effort of an episode from HIMYM and it’s nice to not have anything but complaints while reviewing one of its season 8 episodes. I didn’t have a chance to discuss last week’s episode but I will say that Brad has always been my favorite of the minor characters in the How I Met Your Mother world (sorry Ranjit) and it’s always a welcome sight to see him return, this time as the "bad guy" lawyer trying to take down Marshall and his firm over the case of chemical dumping.

For the most part this was an episode spent solely on having some fun and thankfully put the relationship stuff on the backburner. Joe Manganiello was totally game for whatever he was asked to do and he and Jason Segel carried most of the humor of the episode while the others told made up stories of their “bad ass” pasts. Far from the best half hour we’ve seen from HIMYM but I’ll certainly take it at this point.

My other favorite moments:

• “How you going to provide for the little dudes’ futch?” - Brad putting down Marshall for being an environmental lawyer.
• “Because when you do one good deed, it creates a ripple effect.” – Marshall being cheesy with future Marvin.
• “Objection your honor, no one needs this long to pick up a pen.” - Marshall.
• “Objection your honor, on account of this is ridonk!” – Brad being Brad.
• Barney didn’t have a dog as his wingman.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Splitsville’

Remember when we would have considered this to be the worst episode of How I Met Your Mother ever made as opposed to saying "well at least Barney didn't have a dog for wing-man?" Those were the days. What ticked me off the most about this episode is that not only was it lacking humor, but I was just plain out annoyed by the resolutions we got here as the set ups to them basically either made me dislike the characters or cringe at their wants and desires.

Obviously the biggest problem was the main story where we come to find out that Robin is in a purely sexual relationship with Nick who also is apparently one of the dumbest people on Earth (*). And Robin developing conflicting opinions on whether or not to dump him leads to Barney being required to step in and do the deed by finally declaring to Robin the love he really feels for her. Well, sort of. This has gotten to the point where it’s just down right insulting to the fans of the show. Even if we didn’t know, which by the way they have made it very clear to us that WE KNOW, Robin and Barney are going to end up together, I would still absolutely hate this on again off again story between the two of them. Get it over with, get them together, and let us and them get on with our lives.

(*) Now, if I’m not mistaken, nothing in previews episodes hinted at Nick being unintelligent so this was kind of out blue. I actually thought there was some humor in it, but I wish we had gotten before his final episode.

Oh and over on the Ted, Marshall, and Lily side of things? Well I could see this being a pretty decent side story of an iCarly episode. I mean come on. Radnor, Segel, and Hannigan are all good actors and once upon a time they were casted perfectly for their roles in HIMYM. But they don’t do what some of these recent storylines call for, basically turning them into cartoon characters.

Other favorite moments:

• One. There was only one thing that qualified for my “favorite moments” section and it had nothing to do with a part of the story or a joke. But watching Neil Patrick Harris pretend to eat his Chinese food at the beginning was amazing. And one point he accidentally dropped some chicken from his chopsticks and stared at them like they were defective.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

How I Met Your Mother: “Who Wants to Be a Godparent?”

Hey I didn't think that was half bad. In fact I enjoyed a large amount of the episode, which is an immense improvement over the previous three installments we've gotten to start the season off. I had a few genuine laughs, two big laughs, and I appreciated a pretty darn decent story that everyone in the group got to partake in.

I always think HIMYM is at its best when all five of the characters are all together throughout an episode, having the same experience and playing off of each other’s quirks. In “Godparent” we got exactly that and I think it was clear that this episode was better because of that. I’m not saying that we can’t have any story-lines involving who the single members of the group are dating, or what goofy couple problem Lily and Marshall are having, but at this point in the shows run those story-lines have gotten so played out that they need to find a way to make them original again and at the very least develop the supporting characters better for them. It’s tough as a viewer to care about the money that Victoria’s Dad thinks Ted owes him, or the motorcycle scooter Nick rides (*), when the show has essentially ignored Veronica all season with the exception of a few scenes and has barely even given us Nick’s first name let alone shown us any reason as to why Robin should like him.

*Cobie Smulders seemed more than ready to reprise her role as Maria Hill from The Avengers with the motorcycle get-up. Not complaining.

It was also really nice to see a story that was not only new to HIMYM but one I don’t think I've really seen before on television. Most shows, including what I assume HIMYM will do in the near future, kind of ignore the fact that new parents don’t have time to hang out with the main group anymore and kind of just go on with business as usual with the occasional baby/child story thrown in. But the reality is that it becomes a real problem for people and it shouldn't be ignored so nonchalantly. Glad HIMYM tackled the issue and was able to make a funny, touching story around it.

Some other thoughts and great moments:

• “Barney Stinson. How may I direct my penis?” – Barney answering his Booty Call phone.
• Robin would listen to a police scanner during lunch.
• One of the spaces on the Godparent wheel was: Tooth Fairy, Santa, Bigfoot. I’m guessing the Bigfoot issue would be of the utmost importance to Marshall.
• “He’s no Vinnie Pestano. Am I right?” I have a feeling that I’m one of 12 How I Met Your Mother viewers that got the reference but it was so fantastic.

Comments are certainly welcome, whether they are for agreement, disagreement, or indifference.

How I Met Your Mother: "Pre-nup"

Sorry for the delay in my How I Met Your Review, I didn’t have time to watch the episode last night and this whole week is shaping up to not have much time for television watching/reviewing. And if I do have time, they’ll have to be short recaps like this one.

“Pre-nup” was a slight improvement over last week’s poor season premiere, but that clearly isn’t saying much. For instance, I actually had an audible laugh when Robin first got excited by watching herself on television (clearly a sign that her and Barney are meant for each other), but then they had that joke go on too long and effectively ran it into the ground.

I wish that the show had taken a little more time establishing how and when Quinn, Nick, and Victoria became best friends with the rest of the group instead of assuming we’d just shrug it off and accept it. Maybe we’ll get rid of Nick in the next episode and Victoria after that and get back to the norm, but as of right now I feel like they’re really taking advantage of their audience with the lack of character depth they’re employing with everyone right now.

In the tag at the end of the episode Ted expresses his enthusiasm for the German sitcom Klaus shows them by saying how it great the show was at making the audience laugh as well as making us care about the characters onscreen. I wish the How I Met Your Mother writers would take some of their own advice to heart moving forward.

Comments are certainly welcome, whether they are for agreement, disagreement, or indifference

Reviews: How I Met Your Mother and Partners

The Emmys are over and even though there are so many fantastic shows that now exist outside of the four major networks, and some shows have already started their yearly runs, the 2012 television officially starts tonight and this guy is certainly excited.

How I Met Your Mother

Leading off my viewing season is the eight year veteran How I Met Your Mother. For a show that was a perennial all star for its first 5 seasons(*) it has really been a shell of its former self during the last two years. From what Jason Segel and Neil Patrick Harris are saying, it sure sounds like this is indeed going to be the final season of HIMYM so hopefully the writers have one more great run in them to get us to a satisfying conclusion.

(*)Including HIMYM’s second season which is one of the all-time greats. In that season we got introduced to the Robin Sparkles single: “Let’s Go to the Mall,” a certain slap bet, Swarly, and Barney meeting his “father” Bob Barker on The Price is Right.

With that being said, tonight was far from being one of HIMYM’s finer outings. For a show that’s supposed to be a comedy, there were close to zero comedic moments in tonight’s episode. I’m not saying I have to be rolling on the floor laughing for 21 straight minutes, but there just wasn’t anything to even chuckle at; unless of course you find Barney and the current future but not really future Mrs. Stinson kinda sorta cheating on each other fresh off their engagement as comedic gold. Also, Marshall and Lily in their haze wasn’t especially funny the first time they used a Windows 97’ screensaver to represent their sleep deprivation, so I didn’t think it was necessary to try that flop over and over again. I did, however, enjoy Thomas Lennon as Victoria's fiance Klaus as well as the episodes' ending being scored with the fantastic Band of Horses song "The Funeral."

When I look back on this episode at the end of the season, hopefully it will fit better into the season as a whole. It’s entirely possible that the writers were less worried about comedy and much more concerned on setting up exactly how Barney and Robin will end up back together and how Ted will come to the realization (like we haven’t had this bulky idea shoved in our faces 50 times during the run of the series) that he just needs to wait for Mrs. Perfect.

I’ve seen every episode of HIMYM, most more than once, so I’m definitely not going to give up on it now and I’ll have a review of each episode throughout the season. Mrs. Mosby better be worth the wait!

Partners

Oh man. This new CBS show centers around two best friends, one who’s straight and who’s gay. So in typical CBS fashion for comedy they were able to make all of their characters ridiculously unfunny stereotypes and if you were to remove the laugh track it would be a show that’s borderline offensive to everyone. Humanity, as a whole, should be offended that this show makes it onto television. I just don’t understand why these CBS sitcoms get so many viewers while shows like Parks and Recreation and Community are lucky to scrape together enough viewers to field 5 on 5 basketball game.

The pilot for Partners wasn’t just bad because of its attempt to exploit stereotypes, but everything about it was totally unimaginative. The show is a blatant Will and Grace rip-off, with the exception of Grace being replaced by a straight guy and the extraction of anything humor related. The storylines of proposing and getting closer in their romantic relationships may have been okay 12 or 13 episodes into the series, but they expected us to automatically care about these characters and their love lives before we even really knew their names.

No second chance for Partners next week and unless I’m hearing a ton of internet buzz about the show in the future, I hope to never have to view this crap again.

Two Broke Girls & Mike and Molly

Didn't watch these shows considering I knew I'd get more laughs from listening to the ineptitude of John Gruden during Monday Night Football then I would from them.

Well I was kind of harsh tonight, usually I’m much more of a fanboy for television and I’m sure that will show in the future. Monday is kind of down night for television so HIMYM might be the only episode I blog about going forward for this day of the week. I still have to give Revolution a chance though as well as Mob Doctor(**). Tomorrow I’ll be reviewing the new Fox comedy block which includes two new episodes of New Girl (Yes!), and the two new shows Ben & Kate and The Mindy Project.

(**) Although, I do not like Mob’s prospects of me liking it considering: a) The name of show, come on FOX. And b) It stars Michael Rappaport. I’m not sure if that’s the correct spelling of his name, but considering he’s the worst actor person in the world, it’s not worth my time to look it up.

Comments are certainly welcome, whether they are for agreement, disagreement, or indifference.