For me, the transition from watching a show five episodes at a time on DVD to watching weekly as it is screened has rarely done the show any favours. Which obviously isn't the show's fault, and yet I can't help but be biased against any new seasons, as I realised when I watched this episode. It's not hard to see where this bias comes from. Firstly, watching a show weekly is a very different experience. I contend that television series these days are written as much (if not more) to be seen in large gulps in DVD box sets as they are to be viewed weekly. A DVD box set favours the overarching story of the season over the stories of the individual episodes, which are favoured by weekly viewing (and I owe my love of HIMYM to its attention to the ongoing story). The difference between these two ways of viewing television are different enough that they could almost be considered different media, and the shock of your beloved TV program suddenly switching medium could be harmful to your enjoyment.
But the second reason for my bias is that I've had some bad experiences. It's easier to take a failing show in a bold new direction than it is to create a new season of a popular show. In the latter case you have to juggle the need to keep elements that made the show a success, while also still showing audiences things they've never seen on TV before, which is also what makes a show a success. So a season opener is always risky territory, and there are so many reviewers (amateur or otherwise) out there who will jump at the change to declare that "they" have "run out of ideas," one of the most meaningless phrases in our language. So there've been times when I've eagerly anticipated the return of a show, only to find it's not as good. Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 leaps to mind.
So as much as I was becoming aware that my assumption that Season 5 of HIMYM wasn't going be as good was a bias I was bringing in, the episode did nothing to convince me that this bias was unfair. For a series that used to wow me with how much ground it could cover in a 20 minute episode, nothing much happened in this episode. Marshall and the now-weirdly-blonde Lily's relationship is so stable that nothing interesting's going to happen there, so they're reduced to obsessively interfering in their friends' relationship. I think if Barney and Robin had gotten together in Season 1, when they were closer to being real characters, the oddness of the pairing might have produced some interesting results, but over the years their characters have eroded into collections of broad characteristics and catchphrases, so now the union is just...kind of boring. And that leaves Ted as the quirky fifth wheel, which is never his best look. The episode had a couple of jokes that were milked for all they were worth, and we're no closer to meeting the mother. Unfortunately, there's a reason the phrase "jump the shark" is a reference to a sitcom (Happy Days. I'll let Wikipedia explain). They tend to be of limited scope, and unwilling or unable to do anything particularly serious or game-changing. How I Met Your Mother has carved itself a nice little niche, and so it's fast running out of places to go. Strap on your waterskis, Barney, because I think this season will be the series' last.
CBS, Sep 21 2009. Written by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. Directed by Pamela Fryman.
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