I hated a lot of the final episodes. But the ending hit the mark. The point wasn't to say Ted and Robin belonged together. The show actually pretty cleverly made it clear that Tracy was the love of Ted's life, and Robin is a woman who will make him happy after he lost her. Which is interesting, because arguably... Ted may not be the love of Tracy's life either, but he's a man who seems to make her happy.

I personally think the ending was brilliant. It isn't like How I Met Your Mother to end conventionally. For anyone who doesn't get the ending, think of any person you know who lost the love of his life, only to marry again. The ending will start to make a lot more sense and thank goodness HIMYM once again chose reality over fairy tale.

my biggest problem is how they spend the whole damn season on the wedding then cram everything into two episodes at the end. Would have been a much better story if they had spread it out and spent less time on the wedding.

And if they'd done a good job conveying that, I might be OK with it. Instead, they devoted a total of about 3 minutes of screen time to it while devoting an entire meandering season to setting up a wedding that lasted 30 seconds.

No matter what the ending was, we all would have complained about the way the last season was set up. It was god awful save for a few episodes.

Again, I should Q myself as to why Robin / Ted is a bogus ending.

But in short: it undermined almost every moral Narrator Ted espoused about what to look for in a relationship.

What you look for in a relationship when you are young and looking for the love of your life is one thing, and what you are looking for in a relationship when you are older and have lost the love of your life already is another. At that age you know there isn't going to be another love of your life, you are just looking for someone that you care about and are comfortable with - and Robin fit that perfectly.

I appreciate what they attempted to do with the ending, but their execution was abominable.

FYP

Exactly.

Yeah, and just because Ted and Robin wanted different things when they were younger doesn't mean that stays true forever. It's not that hard to imagine that Robin in her 50s might be ready to settle down a little, and that with his kids nearly grown Ted might be ready to un-settle a little.

Bullshit. You must be young.

Exactly. People change, their wants and needs change. It is part of life. I don't want the same things in my 50s that I wanted in my 20s.

.... But showing how you don't want the same things as a 50 year old as you had as a 20 something wasn't the point of the damned show.

What was the point? Don't you think the producers, who created the show, know what the point of the show was better than you? They knew the ending before the show even started. It was what they always intended to happen.

Then they did an awful job of doing it given that the entire show seemed like it was actually a completely different direction from that until the last 5 minutes.

Yeah, I think they call that a "surprise ending".

Again, executed extremely poorly.

Narrator Ted's first words were to tell his kids the greatest love story: that was the story of how he met their mother.

Bays and Thomas painted themselves into the corner with the pilot.

Anyway. 200 and a scatter of episodes centered with one thread: how everything led to Ted meeting the Mother. His narration along the way painted the picture of how he had grown, matured and eventually came to be ready to meet the woman because without this change she'd probably avoid a relationship with Ted or he'd be too fixated on something or someone else.

The show made it a REPEATED plot line to demonstrate why Ted and Robin weren't meant to be, and the narration of Ted *never* used these points to show that things change.

I get that things aren't always perfect and the Mother's death makes sense (which is bullshit IMO because HIMYM is an escapist type of premise that relies on a fairy tale type of resolution but w/ever) but undoing several hours worth of character development just to put Ted and Robin together is pretty ridiculous to me.

Half correct. Sepinwall probably could convey this much better than I will but....


In the pilot, they threw in the curveball of "and that is how I met your Aunt Robin" to end the episode to increase the chances that CBS would pick up the series. They thought of the whole "your story has been aunt Robin this whole time dad. Go get her" in the second season because you could pretty much toss it at the end of any season and it would work if the series was cancelled.


They basically married themselves to this idea from there on out. My problem with them doing that is they spent from season 4 on, hammering us over the head with the idea that "Ted and Robin will never be together!" just so it would be some stupid twist. Not to mention the last season was the worst of the series. So much filler. That finale was crammed with too much.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/why-c...-your-dad.html

BS Passed
By Josef Adalian

SANTA MONICA, CA - MARCH 01: Actress Greta Gerwig attends the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards at Santa Monica Beach on March 1, 2014 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage)
Here’s how much everyone in Hollywood assumed that How I Met Your Dad would be on CBS’s lineup next season: Last week, major Hollywood trades and entertainment-news sources didn’t think twice about rushing up a story saying that the Greta Gerwig–led project had been ordered to series, even though the Eye network hadn’t confirmed it. And yet, here we are today, with CBS chief Nina Tassler saying she was “heartsick” over the situation and confirming that the Eye wouldn’t be moving forward with the show unless creators Carter Bays, Craig Thomas, and Emily Spivey and producer 20th Century Fox TV agreed to shoot a new pilot. Industry insiders tell Vulture that the producers are willing to try again — but only if CBS gives the tweaked HIMYD a series order. It amounts to a standoff and, as of Wednesday afternoon, there’s little optimism about a resolution.
But that doesn’t mean there’s not still a chance we’ll still get to see the How I Met Your Mother spinoff at some point. Vulture rang up some of our industry sources to find out what’s going on and what’s next. Here’s what we currently know:
1. The network had to have had serious creative issues with HIMYD in order to pass.
That might sound obvious, given the outcome, but it’s not as much a given as you’d might think. Some years, buzzy projects die because networks fall in love with too many shows, and something has to give. Last year, for example, CBS brass shocked everyone by passing on Shawn Ryan’s Beverly Hills Cop adaptation, with Eye execs explaining that while the pilot wasn’t bad, they just thought they had a wealth of other, better drama prospects. (Turns out those prospects all died this season, so maybe not.) But this year, CBS clearly didn’t have a banner season developing new comedies. It has only added one sitcom (The McCarthys) to its fall schedule, while The Odd Couple reboot with Matthew Perry is being held for mid-season. CBS is even cutting back from eight comedies to six next season, another sign it doesn’t sense a lot of opportunity with new sitcoms right now. Given the Eye’s needs for new comedies, there’s no doubt it really, really wanted to put HIMYD on the air: It’s a franchise that would at least get sampled by viewers, and in success, would’ve gone a long way to solving CBS’s Monday ratings issues (though it’s possible it could’ve ended up on Thursdays).
2. Casting ended up being a problem.
According to multiple sources, the Eye’s issues weren’t with star Greta Gerwig. Everyone we talked to — nobody would agree to be quoted because of how sensitive the show situation is — said Gerwig was great as the titular character searching for true love. The problem, we hear, was with two of the main characters surrounding Gerwig. (We’ve heard different accounts of exactly which two.) Some sources think these other characters didn’t pop opposite Gerwig. Also, while Gerwig’s star wattage wasn’t an issue, insiders suggest at least some CBS execs had issues with whether her character was “likable” enough. In the pilot, she’s going through a divorce, of course; the dissolution of a marriage rarely brings out the best in people.
3. The fact that CBS doesn’t own HIMYD isn’t helping matters.
Sources sympathetic to the studio and producers have pointed out that CBS had issues with the pilot for Odd Couple — two roles are already being recast — and yet that project got a series order for later in 2015. The reason, they claim: CBS’s in-house studio produces Odd, making the project far more attractive since, in success, CBS will make hundreds of millions in syndication revenue. (By contrast, any HIMYD profits would go to 20th.) But other industry sources note that the roles being recast on Odd are relatively minor; the two main leads are staying the same. By contrast, the HIMYD role in doubt represent two-fifths of the ensemble cast.
Leave aside the whole Odd Couple vs. HIMYD question, though, or whether CBS has a double standard for its own shows and those from outside studios. It is clear that CBS — and all networks — increasingly are interested in owning as much of their lineups as possible. With ad revenue not as certain as it once was due to declining ratings, networks are looking to syndication, streaming, and international markets to make up the difference. This is why The Millers will be back on Thursdays behind The Big Bang Theory next season, even though the show loses half of TBBT’s audience: CBS owns it, and it will do whatever it takes to keep it on the air for 100 episodes. Ownership may not be the main reason HIMYD isn’t ordered at CBS, and it’s also true that the Eye is willing to go the extra mile for some shows it doesn’t own (Mom, from Warner Bros. TV, got a second season despite meh ratings, and will now get to air behind TBBT on Monday for several weeks). But ownership issues are clearly clouding the conversation about the future of the project on CBS: There’s lots of mistrust between CBS and 20th right about motives and intentions.
4. 20th has options for selling HIMYD elsewhere, but it’s unclear how it will proceed.
The most logical home for the show would seem to be Fox. It’s 20th’s sister studio, which means that those ownership issues we just detailed would not only go away, but make the project more financially attractive to the network. And HIMYD, with its young cast and singles looking for love formula, would fit right in with The Mindy Project and New Girl. On the other hand, neither New Girl nor Mindy is exactly a ratings juggernaut, and Fox already has a full comedy slate for next year. Also? Fox didn’t exactly endear itself to Bays and Thomas last year when it burned off their sweet and funny series The Goodwin Games. People patch over differences all the time in Hollywood, though. As for other possible homes, HIMYD, with its winning female lead, would seem very much at home on ABC, which targets young women and could very much use a well-known brand to help kickstart its new 8 p.m. Tuesday comedy hour. On the other hand, ABC just ordered its own sitcom about young folks falling in love in New York City (Manhattan Love Story), and it owns that show. NBC Entertainment president Jen Salke worked on How I Met Your Mother when she was at 20th, so she knows Bays and Thomas well. But NBC also has its share of romantic comedies next season. The question is whether HIMYD is seen as the perfect companion for ABC and NBC’s new shows — or just too similar. As for cable, some outlets have noted FX/FXX might be an option, given they’re also siblings of 20th and FXX is a comedy network. Maybe! But the show’s star producers and semi-big lead actor might make it too expensive for cable. TBS would seem to be a great fit, though.
5. Just because CBS execs don’t like HIMYD doesn’t mean it’s not good.
Sorry to drop a cliché, but comedy really is subjective. Eye brass thought last fall’s We Are Men was hi-lar-i-ous, and gave it an amazing time slot right behind HIMYM. America violently disagreed. CBS has had better luck with comedies than any other network in the past five to ten years, producing the biggest and longest-running hits. It clearly knows what makes its viewers laugh, and that’s fine. But as smart and worthy of respect the CBS brain trust is, their collective decision that a show is funny or not funny doesn’t make it so. We haven’t seen the finished pilot, but we’ve talked to many people who read the script and found HIMYD charming and well-written and very much in the spirit of the best of HIMYM. We’ll probably know within a week or two whether any other networks agree.
6. The fact that Twitter didn’t like the finale of HIMYM had absolutely nothing to do with CBS’s decision.
Sorry, it just didn’t. If CBS cared what the internet thought, it would’ve canceled Two and a Half Men years ago.

In defense of CBS, they did the same thing with The Big Bang Theory. That original pilot was shit. They jettisoned everything but Sheldon and Leonard and that awful sperm donation scene and started a new cast and pilot. It improved it greatly.

I am now getting the vibe of Carter and Bays' heads are so far up their own asses for CBS to put up with them.

Yeah, Sheldon is way funnier being asexual.

Semi-relevant bump:

For anyone who loved Cristin Milioti in HIMYM, Wolf of Wall Street, Once or that Ford Edge ad, her and Ben Feldman (Ginsberg from MadMen)'s show A to Z has the pilot hosted on Hulu right now.

I've been watching HIMYM in recent months. I was never interested because some of the characters seemed terrible, but whatever. It was on at about the time that I usually turned the computer off for the night.

I'd heard that the ending was not well received, and I watched it last night. Holy cow, that was a terrible series finale. The first 57 minutes were fine and I really liked how it ended. And then the last three minutes suddenly came out of nowhere and ruined the whole thing.

Timely bump-been watching this everyday. Pretty funny series and Neil Patrick Harris is the real star. You would never know he is gay in real life he plays he part so well.

Also Cobie Smulders is so ****ing sexy.

I hate Ted. He is a beta and just like the nebbish/dorky lead guys in Friends (Ross) and (JD) in Scrubs

I can't watch re-runs of that show because of how badly they botched the ending.

Every single episode arc except for the 'its a penis!' episode leaves me sitting there going "who !@#$ing cares? - none of this even matters..."

As you noted - all they needed to do was cut to black before the final 3 minutes and then re-run the credits.

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This was all it took. But they decided early on that they'd shot those scenes when the kids were younger and they HAD to use them despite the fact that the character arcs clearly made them out of place as the show developed.

I've never seen a show set nearly a decade of good will on fire in 3 minutes like that. They could've ended the show with a homicidal maniac breaking into the house, tying up ted and making him watch his children be sodomized and it wouldn't have been orders of magnitude worse than it was.

Exactly - the entire latter half of the series established - REPEATEDLY - that Robin was not the right person for Ted. Ever. In any way, in fact. They almost overdid it.

And sure, maybe 50 yr old Ted was a changed man - but we didn't see any of that. It wasn't part of the show. It didn't matter. So why is this sudden flip at all relevant to the series and how did it contribute to it?

It's Game of Thrones levels of awful.

I get to the point where I wonder why there has to be big ass finales. Maybe just end the show, and let the characters live there lives.

The alternate ending remains the best.

Taking Ted on a 10-year journey to meet the mother only to then guy punch everyone by revealing he lost her just 10 years later was… just not good.

I think it was an attempt to repeat the amazing dramatic impact of Marshall finding out his dad had died (which remains one of the best-executed, creative, heartbreaking and still funny episodes of TV I’ve ever watched).

I got a ton of joy and entertainment from this show. I was in the exact age/life band as the gang when the show started - many-times-weekly drinks at the same bar with the same cast of characters.

And then life happened. Marriages. Kids. And things changed. The time we had for each other dwindled, even as the love we have for each other stayed the same.

I think it’s the hardest thing about being a grown-up.

One reason that I avoided the show for so long was that only two of the five characters were engaging.

Barney was very entertaining, though of course you have to have someone like him be slightly off to the side.

Robin was interesting with her weird back story. I liked her.

Ted was a little annoying, but tolerable as the straight man glue of the show. He was neutral.

Lily was annoying, as was her relationship with Marshall. There was nothing very realistic about her. The more I watched, the closer she moved to tolerable, but she never quite got there.

Marshall - everything about that simpering wimp was intolerable, and he never got better.

However, the writing was pretty good and the premise was pretty good, so after watching a few episodes I developed the habit.

That's pretty much exactly how it should have ended. (I'm talking about the video, not the child sodomy.) I was watching and my heart grew three sizes as I watched Ted find his true love and live happily ever after. I had a tear in my eye and was thinking, "Wow, this wasn't what I expected, but it was great."

And then the last three minutes happened, and I was left staring at the TV like I had just watched the sodomy ending.

In part, I think my disappointment was that I adore that Milioti actress. She's got those eyes that cure all that is wrong with the world. So after the whole series, finding someone with those eyes was the perfect ending, and I liked the concept that Robin may have been great, but she was always one step too far. That's a good novel concept to end the series on.

But no - they killed Milioti and went with the trite ending.

If you haven’t seen it, watch her perform the song Falling Slowly. It’s from a play she was in the adaptation of.

Absolutely gorgeous song and she’s amazing.

Re: Robin and Ted, yeah it was frustrating that they spent the whole show showing/explaining why she and Ted didn’t work and then put them back together at the end.

Just awkward and silly.

I saw an earlier post in this thread that she was the woman who mesmerised me in the Ford Edge commercial. I need to hunt down more stuff that she's done. She might actually make my laminated list.

Ironically for me personally, first time I saw Miloti was as an 'influencer' on 30 Rock, and it was one of the worst characters in the show's history.

Had to work to forget that role as I started enjoying her in other things.

How I met your Father has Hillary Duff. Who needs to be plowed by me so hard.

I am not watching that reboot.