How I Met Your Mother: Desperation Day

     I'm sure some people feel I've been to hard on HIMYM on this blog.  After all, its a sitcom not Shakespeare.  Its supposed to make us laugh not change the world and critiquing every plot point just holds it up to a standard a goofy comedy isn't trying to meet in the first place.  But one of the reasons I fell in love with HIMYM was its attention to detail.  Each episode seemed to build on what the previous had established and we were given strong characters with a deep history.  Much of the humor was based on this history and not stereotypical caricatures like other sitcoms.  Jokes were written to fit the established situations not situations written to make the jokes.  But here we are in season 6 and the history seems to be becoming to deep for the writers to keep up.  It is a common problem with long running sitcoms.  Watch the first season of Friends and then watch season 9.  Each character became a ridiculous cartoon caricature of the more real character they started as.  Joey started as a believable dumb guy that we were all familiar with, he ended as an incredible stupid character who acted in a way no really person would.  I had faith that the HIMYM writers would avoid this problem.  They were too clever with their writing to let this happen.  But I'm now starting to think I was wrong.
     I bring this up because for the second or third time this season HIMYM threw away what has already been established to make a character fit into a situation instead of the other way around.  "Desperation Day" could have been a great episode, but due to some poor plotting decisions was just OK.  The revelation that Marshal was hiding in Minnesota and reverting back to childish behavior in response to his father's death was a great move.  It was both touching and funny.  It gave us an opportunity to both feel for Marshal's loss and laugh at his ridiculous behavior.  But where the HIMYM writers went wrong was with Ted.  I can only suppose that they wanted Ted to end up in Minnesota to help resolve Marshal's story, but by doing so they ignored everything we know about Ted.  From the very first episode it has been established that Ted jumps into relationships too fast and reestablished as recently as "Say Cheese" from last season.  One could say the whole show is based on the premise that Ted jumps into relationships, constantly searching for "The One."  That being the case, why would Ted suddenly run to Minnesota because he felt his relationship with Zoey was moving too fast?  I have no problem with character growth and there are certainly events during the course of the show that could push Ted into being reluctant to jump in like he once did, but none of that was mentioned or established in the episode.  We were just supposed to except that Ted, for no explained reason, would suddenly part from 6 years of behavior and run from commitment.  It didn't work and was just lazy writing from a group of writers that hasn't been historically lazy.
      To make the decision even worse, the writers had a better option staring them right in the face.  Another character that the writers have been dropping the ball on of late is Barney. We started the season off with Barney finding out that his real father was out there and since have been dropped various hints that he is struggling with the fact that father wasn't present as he grew up or even still present today.  What better foil to Marshal?  We have two characters coming from different starting points trying to deal with a lack of a father figure as adults.  This episode would have been so much better if it dealt with the very parallel stories and maybe the two could have helped each other to resolution.  The door is still open for such an episode to happen.  And I honestly hope that the HIMYM writers have it in the pipeline, but now would have been a perfect time for it.
     I also have a problem with what looks like another Barney girlfriend.  Didn't we learn from the Barney/Robin relationship that Barney works best without a girlfriend?  Barney is at his funniest single and putting him in a relationship just kills the character.  Maybe the writers feel it makes him more sympathetic, but I think that would be better accomplished by better exploring his search for his father.  The fact of the matter is Robin is the perfect match for Barney.  They both want the same thing from life, they compliment each other perfectly.  If that didn't work, any other hook up is going to feel like second best.  It's hard to look back and say the decision was wrong, hindsight is always 20/20, but they never should have put the two together in the first place.  They should have hinted at how good the two are for each other, given the two all those special moments, but never put them together until it is reveled at the show's conclusion that they are together now.  The pay off would have been so much better.
     All in all, HIMYM used to be must see TV, a show I couldn't wait to watch each week, but is quickly becoming merely pleasant and mildly entertaining, just a normal run of the mill sitcom. And that makes me a little sad.

Other episode notes...
     - Marshpillow needs to be a new character
     - loved Marshal's grow by telling Ted "we're men now... leave the crust on!"
     - I was going to point out that Ted and Marshal were playing the original Nintendo when Marshal claims to have Super Mario Cart which was a Super Nintendo game and then rip the writers for not realizing this, but then I remembered how annoyed I get at people who do that.  I know what the joke was, I'm not going to get caught up on details the writers should have checked up on.