Just Meet Their Freak’n Mother Already!!!

Last week saw ‘How I Met Your Mother’ launch its seventh season – a good run for any television show. When you’ve made the premise of the show based around a big reveal you can’t show until the finale, dragging it out that long mightn’t be the best idea however. As much as I love the show, and still find it full of good lines and characters, I can’t shake the feeling that they should’ve closed the door on the series about two years ago.

This is a problem that most U.S. shows have – they won’t quit until there’s no more money to be made no matter how bad it is for the product. Ending ‘The Office’ when Steve Carrell left would’ve been a really sweet moment to wrap up the stories, but they’re going to push on regardless. If ‘How I Met Your Mother’ had finished at with the fifth season – or even the third – it could’ve left on a high and been remembered as a classic instead of another sitcom that fizzled out.

Plus there’s the logistics of it. Every year that passes pushes Ted further into his thirties before he settles down and has kids makes him older when Future Ted is telling the story. At this rate he’s likely to die from old age before he finishes the story. Not to mention his deal with Robin – getting married at 40 if single – so we’re only a few seasons away from winding up with the default choice.

Speaking of Robin, it looks like they’re trying to milk the ‘Not Over Robin Yet’ story once again. They seem to trundle this out whenever they run a narrative arc out and need to pad things out. It’s possibly the fourth time they’ve played this card. A few people have told me that the seventh season sees the characters coming full circle back to the first season. Enough people have now said this that I’m now assuming they’re quoting an interview or publicity material. I don’t see ‘returning to season 1’ as a positive. It implies that they’ve completely run out of ideas and have to tread old ground to keep the show running, or they’re admitting that the show has dropped in quality and they’re trying to recapture the glory days.

Then there’s the narrative issues. Every new relationship that Ted enters into they have to make it seem more important and more extravagant than the last in order for it to feel like something genuine and not a simple placeholder before he meets their mother. With the show renewed for another few years, a few more relationships will pass and the eventual perfect woman scenario is going to have to top all of them. This woman he’s been waiting for had better be something pretty damn spectacular in order to meet the expectations that the writers have heaped upon themselves.

At this point I’m hoping that they introduce her soon, giving Ted a good couple of episodes – or even a season – trying towin her over. Some time is going to need to be spend on this arc if they want it to feel anything other than anti-climatic.

Every week I’m going to watch the new episode, and I’m going to damn well enjoy it. But there’s a shark on the horizon, and that shark’s gonna get jumped.