Wanted to get other opinions on last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother. It is my favorite comedy … although I didn’t enjoy last season as much as the first few.
** Spacing to avoid mouse over spoilers **
Last night’s episode was a little unexpected. I loved the number bit, although I got distracted a few times taking a glance in the background (hooray for the DVR!).
The Marshall-centric episodes always seem to be some of my favorites - “Arrivederci, Fiero”, “The Best Burger in New York”. Last night was no exception. What a great job by Jason Segel & Alyson Hannigan in the last scene. It was moving and heartbreaking and felt real … something that comedies sometimes have a hard time pulling off.
Good episode overall, although I called the final scene well before it happened. I especially liked Lily’s little flash of encouragement before Marshall went in to “blow dry his hair.”
I loved getting to see Alexis Denisof* in this episode! Though it was weird to hear him talking with an American accent.
I also loved the Barney doppleganger.
*I know there are a lot of folks on this board who won’t need this to be explained, but just in case: Alexis is Alyson Hannigan’s husband, and also played Wesley in Buffy The Vampire Slayer – with Alyson – and Angel.
Agreed. I’m a Buffy fan so I already knew that Alyson Hannigan could handle emotional scenes, but Jason Segel – who I already liked – really impressed me.
Marshall & Lily are a GREAT sitcom couple … the actors have wonderful chemistry together. My husband and I often find bits of ourselves in how they relate to each other and how they relate to the outside world as a couple.
I consider myself a reasonably savvy viewer, but when my girlfriend and I are asking one another at the end if that’s what all the numbers were building up (building down?) to, then it’s fair to say that the gimmick didn’t completely work. I’d have rather seen something lighthearted at the end of the countdown, because the countdown itself was lighthearted.
The ending was jarring, to be sure, but it would have been even without the writers so explicitly putting us on the rug before yanking it out from under us.
Aside from the ending, I think “Bad News” was one of the stronger episodes in a strong season. I really liked the callbacks to Sandy Rivers, the doppelganger gag, even Ted’s sensory deprivation getup from the Super Bowl episode.
Thanks for starting this thread, by the way. I dropped by briefly last night and was disappointed to see nobody else talking about the episode. I’m always grateful to SDMB for being a place that isn’t full of “Jason Segal can’t act because he didn’t collapse and wail on the sidewalk” and “Countdown? What countdown?” posts.
The end seemed like a very sudden switch in tone. Almost too sudden. I think the blocking on having Lily jump out of a cab right at that moment is what seemed weird. I thought for sure both Parents were going to end up dead in a plane crash/car accident but losing his Dad is obviously bad enough.
Still, it was a very good episode. Loved the entire scene of Marshall, Lily and his parents when he was trying to make his “deposit”
I agree that the Marshal episodes are the best - Segal is the strongest actor of the bunch (which is tough when you’re on a set with NPH), and his range is excellent. The writing here was fantastic - but the countdown was a little distracting. If I could make any edits, I’d do one of two things:
Change the episode title from “Bad News” to “Big News”. It was a little predictable as well as a bit too light-hearted for the payoff. Turn it into “Bad News” and it’s a little more ominous - which is never a bad thing in a sitcom every once in a while.
Give it more of a New Year’s Eve countdown feel. When I saw the first “50” in the doctor’s office, I thought, “What’s up with the super-imposed ‘50’?”. Then when it changed to “49” the next day, I knew there was some sort of countdown. It wasn’t too gimmicky, but if one of the side-plots involved planning a NYE party (Ted: Hey - if you stand in this one particular spot on the roof, you can see Time’s Square! Let’s have a NYE party!), it would be distracting enough to throw you off the scent just a bit.
I didn’t notice the countdown, except for the 48 on the side of the condiment bottle in the restaurant, and thought it was changing the 57 on a Heinz bottle to something else.
The 50 was displayed so blatantly that my wife and I knew there was something going on even before the 49 was shown.
I wonder how the ending would have played without the countdown. You are primed for something to happen when the cab rolls up with 0001 and then they hit you with the news of Marshall’s father’s death. We were expecting good news (we never make note of a show’s title). Without the countdown we wouldn’t have been expecting anything. I think it was a very effective device, though I did find the tone jarring on a show such as this.
I get that they made several references to his Dad, even going so far as to make note that Marshall was always grateful to have Lily tell his parents about his masturbation.
The countdown itself was fun. It was lighthearted. And it would have totally worked as an awesome way to finally announce the baby! But the way it played out…it felt like…
Really, the best way I can equate it is to our high school production of The Visit. It’s a play with a good deal of lighthearted comedy, a ton of dark comedy, and some serious portions as well. So I and another castmate played one of the comic reliefs: blind eunuch twins. And every time we’d be on stage we’d play it up the best we could for laughs. But the last night of the performance, we said “let’s kick it up a notch!” and started inserting ourselves into scenes where we weren’t supposed to be.
It’s true we got the audience laughing. We also got the director absolutely pissed at us because we were destroying the mood he’s trying to build up with the serious scenes.
And that’s what happened last night. They kept inserting lighthearted into a place where it didn’t belong.
I didn’t notice the episode title either until I goggled it to start this thread. Knowing that may have prepared me a bit more for the ending.
Our 13 yr old son watched the show with us. My husband and I picked up on the numbers instantly and kind of chuckled at each other by the time Marshall was holding the condiment bottle with the 48. Our son didn’t understand what was so amusing … we had to rewind it three times before he noticed!!!
I never noticed the countdown stuff. I called the death as soon as I saw the empty workshop. It seemed a bit contrived to have Lily pull up just as the phone rings.
Barney was WAY over the top in this one- the scenes with his lookalike doctor were just silly.
