Dementeleus Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 This is the safest they could have played it. This is the ending people were expecting for years. Then they spent 4-5 years convincing their viewers that they weren't gonna do it, only to circle back and basically piss on half the series Nah, it's some sort of weird "let's give the fans what they want", when in fact the fans had already moved on in Season 2. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grim22 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Nah, it's some sort of weird "let's give the fans what they want", when in fact the fans had already moved on in Season 2. Exactly. Pretty telling that the kids' scene was from season 2. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJohn Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 The ratings were gigantic. The spinoff will flop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hangman Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Exactly. Pretty telling that the kids' scene was from season 2. Impossible. They looked much older. I heard that scene was filmed in season 7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grim22 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Impossible. They looked much older. I heard that scene was filmed in season 7. Nope. They have said that it was filmed during season 2 many times. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20801686,00.html They had this ending shown once before on the show, it was a joke back then, and it is a bigger joke when they made it now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spizzer Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Impossible. They looked much older. I heard that scene was filmed in season 7. They've been saying for years that they had filmed that scene ages ago, long before season 7 even aired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazer Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Scrubs and The Office had good comedy finales. They stayed true to the characters at least. One common defence I have seen so far is "The finale is true to life. People die, people get divorced etc.". But people staying together and dying of old age is also extremely true to life, the main thing everyone hates is that the finale made the mother into a plot device who wasn't important at all thus negating the whole journey, and the wedding we spent 20 episodes watching during which time Ted lets Robin go not once, not twice but thrice is undone in 15 minutes. The worst part is that they let themselves be bound by footage shot 7 years ago.The whole series could have been done as a 2 hour special. Take the first episode, add filler from all the middle episodes. Add the last episode. No that is your Aunt Robin. Filler and Hijanks. Ted tells the kids, hope you enjoyed hearing a little about your dead mother. Now do you want to hear about how sexy i think your Aunt Robin is? As show does a Sopranos fading to Black. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grim22 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 The whole series could have been done as a 2 hour special. Take the first episode, add filler from all the middle episodes. Add the last episode. No that is your Aunt Robin. Filler and Hijanks. Ted tells the kids, hope you enjoyed hearing a little about your dead mother. Now do you want to hear about how sexy i think your Aunt Robin is? As show does a Sopranos fading to Black. It's been done 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4815162342 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Good review/analysis of why the finale didn't work and how it shows how planning big details years in advance can end badly. http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/series-finale-review-how-i-met-your-mother-last-forever-how-they-conned-us-all/1 And kids, I know from anger-inducing finales. I literally wrote a book about a bunch of shows that featured them, and that book featured candid quotes from their creators about how little of those series were planned and how much was created on the fly. Those quotes angered many fans of those shows, who used them as further evidence for why they hated the endings, and for why no show should be allowed to improvise major story arcs ever. And if any good can possibly come out of this "HIMYM" finale, I would hope that it is the end of this belief. Because so much of what was terrible here was terrible because Bays and Thomas had a very specific vision for the ending of their show and would not — or, perhaps, after they filmed the kids' reactions, could not — deviate from it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Jedi Master 007 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Is it possible they filmed 2 endings? And then waited till this season to figure out which one they would use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iceroll Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 I quite enjoyed the finale, even though I was getting quite bored of the season. I think the way they did made a lot of sense narratively. They've been hinting a lot about Robin's feelings for Ted these last few episodes and what the daughter said makes a lot of sense because the whole story has been so much about Robin and hardly anything about the mother. I'm definitely devastated that the mother died but I don't think that's shitty writing or a bad plot twist. The whole episode was such an emotional rollercoaster and the ending was incredibly bittersweet. It definitely made me think a lot and it will be very memorable for years to come. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boomboom234 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 They devote a a season to Barney and robin's wedding after setting it up for three seasons. Before they break it up in the first five minutes. They have Barney grow and evolve as a character to the point where he stops sleeping around, burns and later passes on the playbook, commit to quinn and then robin and then immediate have him start sleeping around twenty minutes into the finale with a playbook II ( why did they even film the scene of him handing the play book down to those two guys this season?) They have literally twenty episodes of ted giving up robin, to the point where he refuses to run away with her when given the chance in the previous episode and what do they do have ted and robin get back together and revert the mother to a plot device and baby making tool ( because remember robin doesn't want kids). Nine years of characterization pissed away in an hour they could have literally only made the pilot and this finale nothing else that happened matters in the least in the end, 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Bacon Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 On one hand, I think it's awesome that they did some unexpected shit which generally I wouldn't expect from a sitcom series finale. Death, divorce, and whatnot. I'd expect a show like HIMYM to have a nice happy ending with everything wrapped up nicely and everyone's sad that it's gone but happy. On the other hand, it would be a lot better if they didn't have Ted fall for and let go of Robin (and vice versa) like TWENTY-NINE FUCKING TIMES throughout the series. If they'd just not revisited that relationship outside of Ted thinking about what could've been after season two then this would be okay. But they couldn't just let it die. Flying in the face of three or four seasons of plot development that now feel like they only existed as misdirection is just... it's just bad. This ending could've been okay. I'd, as already mentioned, cut out all Ted/Robin stuff after they broke up in S2. I'd also avoid having Robin and Barney get married. Barney can still get married, but to someone else; they've proven that they can write in new likable characters for relationships. I say don't put Robin and Barney back as a couple after that episode in Season 7 where they agree to admit that they cheated to their other halves and she backs out. [Also, I'd just like to say, that may have been the best moment in the show's history. When time comes to a standstill as Robin signals to Barney "no", man, that was such heartbreaking defeat.] So you don't go back on all of that story you dedicated to Robin and Barney being together forever and Ted and Robin being done. It still sucks that the Mother was nothing but a plot device, but at least the ending is still true to the series that preceded it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hangman Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 This fan-edit ending is pretty good: http://youtu.be/0caCEG1nH3E 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJohn Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Good review/analysis of why the finale didn't work and how it shows how planning big details years in advance can end badly. http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/series-finale-review-how-i-met-your-mother-last-forever-how-they-conned-us-all/1 And that unexpected length would force them to revisit the question of Ted and Robin's feelings for each other (or lack thereof) so many times that even the fans who once cared deeply about them would grow tired of the idea. They are damn right. This is what made me mad about the finale of HIMYM. If they weren't doing this every season, I would probably be happy with them ending together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazer Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 (edited) A better plot for this season would have been if Lily had been the kids mother through surrogate, then died, which would leave Marshall and Ted to marry in the future, after gay marriage becomes legal. Marshall and Ted have always been best friends and unknowingly in love with each other, they did just not know it yet, as they both were still in the closet. Edited April 5, 2014 by Lazer Deadshot 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazer Posted April 7, 2014 Share Posted April 7, 2014 I just watched the series finale, and I am glad I knew that was coming, otherwise that last 2 minutes really would have made me mad. Overall, I didn't care for the whole episode as it was like a gap filling recap. What a wasted year.How long were they actually married for, as they didn't get married until almost 10 years into the relationship? About 5 years? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LexJoker Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I got pissed off with how they treated Barney's character in the finale. I had no problem with the ending though, But seriously Barney in his 40s becomes the height of the womanizer he ever was? And he has a child through a one-night stand? They could have done something like he starts sleeping and meeting women more than once, from where he subconsciously starts dating them, even though he denies it. And then the child happens, he sees the child, proposes to the mother and so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robertron Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 So I finished this series about a week ago and I'm still angry. The last season just ruined everything. The fact that Robin and Ted get back together is so stupid. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakspear Posted September 6, 2014 Share Posted September 6, 2014 (edited) http://vimeo.com/105404677This is the real ending now Edited September 6, 2014 by Breakspear 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
