HIMYM, "Miracles": Can't you hear me yell-a?

"How I Met Your Mother" finale spoilers coming up just as soon as I get my daughter a turtle...

Well, we have our mother.

Or do we?

Yes, "Miracles" opens with Future Ted talking about how the cab ride changed his life, and it ends with him proposing to Stella, but you'll note the distinct absence of Future Ted telling the kids something like, "And that's how I asked your mother to marry me." As bet-hedging goes, it's not massive, but it does give the producers an out if they want it.

From what I understand, "Scrubs" will be done filming its season by sometime in August, which is around when "HIMYM" would be starting production on season four, so if they need Sarah Chalke around for close to full time, that shouldn't be too big of an issue.

And I like Chalke quite a bit -- or, at least, I really liked her in "Ten Sessions," where she got to be funny, spar well with Josh Radnor (and, briefly, Jason Segel) and show the right amount of emotion when things got schmoopy with Ted. I think I'd be perfectly fine with her being the mother...

...except that her next two episodes were two of the weaker ones of the season. The relationship tension in both "Rebound Bro" and last night's "Miracles" felt contrived. We know from the end of the Ted/Robin affair that Ted really wants to have a lot of kids, like, immediately, and while Stella's daughter isn't his, seems to me she'd be a bonus, not a problem, for him. So we have this random, artificial break-up -- two break-ups, really -- just designed to make Ted's proposal more dramatic, but even there, it didn't quite work, because Ted's epiphany about Stella came in between the first and second break-up. The only change at the end was that Ted was cleared to leave the hospital.

Beyond that, "Miracles" was frustrating because it felt very slapdash, and because, aside from Marshall's list of lame miracles and Robin's Canadian references (Springsteen as the American Bryan Adams, Sir Sratch-awan), it wasn't a particularly funny episode. I'd be okay with minimal laughter if the dramatic parts were more interesting -- I'm thinking back to the first season finale, with Ted's rain dance and Marshall and Lily's break-up -- but as I said, the Ted/Stella stuff felt artificial.

In fact, the proposal got thoroughly upstaged by the look on Barney's face when he realized he was in love with Robin. It's no surprise that Neil Patrick Harris can play emotions in a more convincing, more interesting manner than Josh Radnor, but we've also had three years to build up to that, as opposed to three episodes of Ted and Stella (plus a handful of other episodes where they were allegedly dating but where Chalke didn't appear).

This was a very odd season of the "HIMYM." It started off very weakly, with too many episodes in a row of Ted and Robin separately dominating the action (including one of the show's worst episodes ever, "We're Not From Here"). Things started to pick up a bit right before the strike hit, and then the show came back much, much stronger post-strike (including "The Bracket," the season's only episode to belong in the "HIMYM" pantheon), only to peter out here in the last three weeks.

Now that we (presumably) have the Mother taken care of, and assuming (I hope) that there's no actors strike to disrupt things further, I'm looking forward to a season that's not disrupted by outside forces or by the producers' need to stall on finding Ted his woman.

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM, "Everything Must Go": G-CWOK tested, dog approved

"How I Met Your Mother" spoilers coming up just as soon as I buy a gross of Hefty bags...

Stunt-casting: the deal with the devil.

On the one hand, if I'm right that CBS is going to include "HIMYM" on the fall schedule it announces on Wednesday, Ms. Britney Spears will be a big reason why. The show was already up in the ratings the week before "Ten Sessions," but Brit-Brit's cameo as Abby gave the show its best numbers ever and likely went a long way towards convincing any skeptical CBS executives that they might just want to renew it even if they don't "get" it.

Britney's presence was so minimal in "Ten Sessions," and the appearance such an obvious win-win for both parties ("HIMYM" got a ratings boost, Britney got to look physically and mentally healthy), that I had no problem with it at the time. But in Hollywood, there's no such thing as leaving well enough alone. Britney's first appearance gave the show its best ratings ever, so why not bring her back a second time? Or, as rumor has it, a third time next year?

Why not? Simple: because the more screen time you give her, the more Britney's limited comic chops are exposed, and the more "HIMYM" begins to resemble the tired old sitcoms it's usually so much better than. There wasn't a second of the Barney/Abby storyline this time that felt like something natural to the show, as opposed to something the writers had to cook up to include (and protect) Britney again. Neil Patrick Harris is a wondrous comic talent, but he can't carry that much dead weight(*) for an entire episode.

(*) Note: that wasn't a fat joke. Britney looked great, actually. She's just not very funny, and not up to NPH's level. She's not even up to Larry Wilmore's level, as the "Bernie Mac" creator/"Daily Show" correspondent made me laugh more in his 90 seconds or so on-camera (as Dr. Greer) than Britney did all episode.

Fortunately, though Britney's screen time was increased over "Ten Sessions," the writers were still smart enough to put her in the B-story, while Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan got to take the A-story, about Marshall losing faith in Lily's art and then finding a way -- with the help of some very attentive dogs -- to restore Lily's faith in him. It still wasn't an outrageously funny plot (and the runner within it about Ted's flaming red cowboy boots veered dangerously close to seeming like latter-era Ross from "Friends"), but it at least felt true to the characters, and in addition to Larry Wilmore, I liked the guys playing the G-CWOK's (Gay Couple Without Kids). Plus, Lily occasionally losing her patience with her kindergarten class works.

A few other notes:

• As Segel and Hannigan said at episode's end, LilyandMarshallSellTheirStuff.com is a real website designed to raise money for an LA children's hospital, but the CharityFolks.com servers clearly weren't expecting an influx of web-savvy "HIMYM" fans, because I haven't been able to get the page to load since it was first mentioned. Also a real website: GuyForcesHisWifeToDressInAGarbageBagForTheNextThreeyears.com (complete with more ridiculous/creepy theme music!)
• Someone on the staff is a big "Cheers" fan. (And why wouldn't they be?) Not only did Barney and Abby's cab ride include an homage to the most famous Sam/Diane scene of all time ("Are you as turned on right now as I am?" "More!"), but the frame on Lily's painting that the G-CWOKs bought was made by Anton Kreitzer, which was Norm's pseudonym in the episode where he hired a lazy crew for his painting business.

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM, "Rebound Bro": If it bleeds, Barney leads

"How I Met Your Mother" spoilers coming up just as soon as I put "Seabiscuit" in my Netflix queue...

Sigh... they can't all be winners, I guess, but if we're buying into my theory that Stella is The Mother, why did her second episode have to the first out and out dud of the post-strike run?

The Ted-Stella portion of the episode was actually okay. Nothing memorable, and certainly not as great a showcase for Sarah Chalke's comic chops as "Ten Sessions" -- plus, there's the matter of the show glossing over from Stella not having time to date to being in the middle of a semi-serious relationship with Ted -- but at least it wasn't actively annoying and sitcommy like virtually every second of the Barney storyline.

I like Will Forte. I think he's one of the more underrated "SNL" castmembers of recent vintage, but something about him just doesn't always(*) translate well to outside comedies. His "Flight of the Conchords" episode was the most traditional, least "Conchords"-y episode of that show's first season, and his performance as Barney's pathetic rebound bro felt far too broad for "HIMYM," which is usually much smarter in its silliness. Just look at Barney himself, and how well Neil Patrick Harris plays what could be a gross and obnoxious character.

((*) Forte was very funny as the Prince's aide in the black tie episode of "30 Rock" last season, but that show takes place on a much cartoonier plane of reality.)

There were a couple of jokes sprinkled throughout the show that at least made me smile -- the "27 Dresses" guy, Robin not being sure that she and Barney had an equal amount of sex with each other, Marshall's list of memorable things from 2003 -- but by "HIMYM" standards, this was a mess.

On one other note, as people keep asking me about the show's future, this Hollywood Reporter story about shows on the bubble says "a pickup is considered a given," and that matches well with the smoke signals I've been seeing. You never know with show business, but I feel confident that when CBS announces its schedule next Wednesday, I will again have no need to throw scrambled eggs at Les Moonves.

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM, "The Goat": Bros before goats?

"How I Met Your Mother" spoilers coming up just as soon as I cancel my trip to Lisbon...

"Robin wasn't living here on my 30th birthday? When did this happen? Oh, wait, the goat was there on my 31st birthday. Sorry, I totally got that wrong."

Wait... what what what?

Are we to take Future Ted's closing lines of the episode as Bays and Thomas just trying to duck having to come up with a payoff to the goat joke (which was set up a long, long time ago in a previous reference to Ted's 30th) because they knew nothing they had could live up to the anticipation? Or will Robin and Ted be living together in time for his 31st birthday? Will they be roommates, or could the whole "Aunt Robin" thing be yet something else that Future Ted totally got wrong? Will Robin somehow be living there but Ted won't? Or have I put a lot more thought into that narration than Bays and Thomas did?

Why are they messing with my head like this?

Up until they wimped out and/or tore apart the show's space-time continuum at the end there, "The Goat" was another superb episode in this wonderful post-strike stretch. There are still those moments of creeping sitcom-ism (Lily buying the goat from Farmer Frank could have been handled better), but the overall intelligence remains at the forefront, and the writers stay true to the characters.

After we all jumped the gun and assumed that the end of "Sandcastles in the Sand" meant Robin and Barney would become some kind of couple, "The Goat" quickly throws out that idea (for now; I still believe we'll see more of them in the future) to deal with a more pressing problem: how will Ted react to this news?

While I've objected in the past to episodes that seemed to defang Barney (notably "The Yips"), Barney's guilt here was different, because it flowed with everything we know about him, instead of going against the grain. Barney may be a player and a cad and a jerk, but if there's one thing he holds sacred, it's his friendship with Ted (and with Marshall and Lily), and his obsession with inventing and following new rules for society. By having sex with the chick from Metro News 1, Barney betrayed both Ted and his own rules. Why wouldn't he freak out about that?

I also liked the way Barney's guilt manifested itself, with impulse purchases from Sky Mall. I've always wondered who actually shops from those overpriced catalogs; now I know. And Barney's own panic in turn gave us Marshall's panic at not wanting to hear the secret -- after being locked into Barney's office -- and the priceless bit of physical comedy where Barney threw the vase (or whatever that was) at Marshall to get Marshall to uncover his ears, followed by the timely popping of the hot dogs.

And I especially like that Ted didn't let Barney off the hook about this. We know this is something Ted will eventually forgive -- Future Ted refers to him as "Uncle Barney," and the producers aren't dumb enough to get rid of Neil Patrick Harris -- but this is something that should take some time to heal, and no doubt many funny things will happen as Barney tries (or doesn't try) to get back into Ted's good graces.

Some other thoughts:

• The writers need to make a decision on Robin's ability to lie and stick with it. In "Slap Bet," she was able to totally snow Ted on the idea that she was once married, and here she was doing much better than Barney at pretending their tryst never happened, but a few weeks back we were told she can't lie without giggling. What's up with that?
• Ranjit! Every episode is at least 5 percent better with Ranjit!
  
• "Barney, you want my X-Box?" "Ted, she has a name!" Shades of Michael on "Arrested Development" telling Gob to get rid of The C-Word, and Lucille telling them both that she'll leave when she's good and ready.
  
• Was that Mr. Pitt from "Seinfeld" as Ben Franklin? And is it wrong that I found George Washington referring to our capitol as "Me, D.C." hilarious?
  
• I like that both Robin (Canadian) and Marshall (Minnesotan) can automatically identify goat droppings (though Robin the Canadian briefly thought it might be from a musk-ox).

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM, "Sandcastles in the Sand": Re-vertigo-go

Spoilers for the latest episode of "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I wave some kids through the waterslide...

Those bastards. Those magnificent, clever bastards. Those prestidigitating, misdirecting, clever SOBs.

They knew we'd all be focusing on the sequel to "Let's Go to the Mall" -- and, therefore, the half-sequel to the series' all-time high point, "Slap Bet" -- and they suspected they couldn't live up to expectations. And so just at that moment when everybody in the audience would be saying, "You know, that wasn't as good as the first Robin Sparkles video," they had Robin and Barney make out -- resolving a bit of Unresolved Sexual Tension that's been lingering since way back in season one's "Zip, Zip, Zip." (That's the one where Robin and Barney have a bro's night out of cigars and Laser Tag, and when Barney tries to put the moves on Robin, only to be told she still has feelings for Ted.) If one of the chief rules of spin is to create a new story to take people's minds off the one you don't want them discussing, then Bays and Thomas and company did one hell of a job spinning here.

Now, I should say that "Sandcastles in the Sand" the episode was quite good. Not "Slap Bet" good, but very little in the series comes close to that level. The idea of Revertigo, and seeing it in practice with both Robin (pathetic lovestruck girl with thick Canadian accent) and Lily (homegurrrlll!!), were vintage "HIMYM" (as was the fast-forwarding through all the Canadian insults) and I thought James Van Der Beek was quite good and self-deprecating as Simon. He may have sounded Irish half the time, but he threw himself into the part in a way that went beyond the hair and makeup choices. When he was re-enacting his life-saving gig at the water park with Ted, I didn't for a second see Dawson Leery.

It was really only "Sandcastles in the Sand" the video that was a disappointment. Because Bays and Thomas are part-time musicians, their past song parodies have been wonderful: "The Slapsgiving Song" (with a pained Barney doing the "whoa-oh-oh"s), "Ted Mosby Is a Jerk" and, especially, the original "Let's Go to the Mall," which was hilarious as both song ("I'll rock your body till Canada Day!") and video (the robot!). "Sandcastles in the Sand" was... okay. It totally worked as the sort of overwrought ballad the likes of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson tried in a bid for artistic credibility. It just wasn't very funny, and the cameos by Alan Thicke and Tiffany herself weren't enough to save it.

But then, just as I was trying to convince myself that I knew the sequel wouldn't be as good as the original and therefore shouldn't act disappointed, Future Ted kept talking about how Barney and Robin kept watching the video, and Barney and Robin kept moving closer together on the couch, and then they totally made out, and all was right with the world.

In a lot of cases, when a veteran show paired off its two remaining single characters, it would smack of creative desperation, but "HIMYM" has been building to this for a while -- from the bro's night out in season one all the way through the two of them sharing cigars and ice cream last week(*) -- and it makes sense for the characters. They're both control freaks about their living spaces, both commitment-phobic to the extreme, enjoy a good smoke and a good firearm, and they both dig the company of Ted Evelyn Mosby. Add to that the great chemistry between Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders, and I see this as a terrific coupling, the sort that's going to be completely different from Ted and Robin, or Marshall and Lily, or Ted and The Mother (Stella?), because I expect Robin and Barney will attempt to keep this on a superficial level. That, or I expect them to try and, to their shock and dismay, realize they have something resembling real feelings for each other. Either way, awesome.

((*) Said cigar/ice cream scene had a number of "HIMYM" fans believing that Barney and Robin were already together, in secret, and that we would find out about it at a later date, ala Ted and Robin breaking up several episodes before the other characters, and the audience, found out about it. Guess not.)

What did everybody else think? Does the prospect of Robin and Barney sucking face make up for the shortcomings of the second Robin Sparkles video? Or am I being too tough on our resident Canadian teen pop sensation?

HIMYM, "The Chain of Screaming": Loud noises!

Spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I listen to the sound of running water...

Ted's back with Stella? What what what?

I know it was only a throwaway reference at the front of Future Ted's narration, and then the set-up for Marshall randomly talking in falsetto when he didn't need to on the phone with Ted, but the idea that Ted and Stella are now dating, despite how we left things at the end of "Ten Sessions" -- and what that means in terms of Stella's probable Mother-hood -- kind of overwhelmed my experience of watching "The Chain of Screaming." There were a number of really good things in it, nothing cringe-inducing like some of the punchlines in the otherwise-brilliant "The Bracket," and yet my mind kept doing mental calculations about how Sarah Chalke might be able to balance filming the final season of "Scrubs" with doing more "HIMYM."

Because, seriously? If they went to all the trouble of establishing that Ted and Stella are now going out, on the heels of their big romantic mini-date a few episodes ago, and all the rumors that Chalke is going to appear a few more times this season... my Mother-Sense is buzzing loud and long. I have no inside information on this, nor do I especially want to get any, but I have to assume we've landed our mom.

As for the rest of "The Chain of Screaming," like I said, I was distracted. I think it was a very good episode, and going back over the events in my head, it feels like it had all the traits I associate with superior "HIMYM" -- fun with flashbacks and altered perspectives (The Ninja Report), Barney being Barney and developing theories, a healthy dose of Marshall and Lily, gags about the reality of life in New York (Ted's pointless car), etc. -- and so I'd like to think it was good, but, again, distraction, so much so that we're going to go straight to the bullet points:

• I like that, in the week "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is going to open, we got a Marshall spotlight episode. That said, seeing Marshall scream, first at Barney (who is so in denial he didn't even register Marshall ripping apart the entire tissue of lies his sense of identity is based on) and then at Artillery Arthur, reminded me that, great as Jason Segel is on this show, the role doesn't often allow him to show all the colors he displays whenever he's in an Apatow joint. Marshall's such a happy guy, but Segel's usual fearlessness goes to another level whenever he gets to play comic rage.


• Who was your favorite faux-Marshall? At first, I was sure Robin-as-Marshall had the title sewn up, as her crazy, gun-toting Canadian-ness has always been comic gold, but then the sexually frustrated Lily-as-Marshall began fantasizing to Arthur (as we learned from the "American Pie" movies, a horny Alyson Hannigan is a funny Alyson Hannigan) and, even better, grabbed her crotch, and that was all she wrote. We have a winner. (Ted The Corrector-as-Marshall was amusing, too, but not in the ladies' league.)
  
• Loved the entire flashback to Gary Blauman -- who, per IMDB, previously appeared in Barney's office in season one's "Life Among the Gorillas" -- telling off the boss, starting with the "And you made our friends, the North Koreans, look bad!" all the way through his failed big gesture.
  
• The messy snacks running gag was another winner, and worked because everything (even the cigar) was at least twice the size it needed to be. Props to the props department for their work on that.
  
• So now that Marshall has quit his job, I suppose we're done with the possibility of John Cho making another guest appearance and possibly crossing paths with Barney. Grr...
• Are we to assume that Ted selling the car (and no doubt taking a beating on the depreciation) will just help Marshall pay the mortgage, or will help subsidize Marshall taking a loss on unloading Dowisetrepla? I'd like to think that Lily and Marshall will continue to be Ted's roomies, but Future Ted's narration back in the first Dowisetrepla implied that buying that condo was a mistake that had very long-term implications for Marshall.
  

What did everybody else think? And is there anyone at this point who doesn't think Stella is going to be The Mother?

HIMYM: TedMosbyIsAJerk.com is a legendary idea

The immediacy of blogging has many advantages, but every now and then, the rush to get a post up and start discussion seems a mistake in retrospect. Case in point: last night's "How I Met Your Mother."

I watched the episode, made a quick run over to TedMosbyIsAJerk.com just to make sure it existed, then started typing away without pausing to reflect -- or, for that matter, to unmute my computer long enough to realize that the website features a 20 minute-long song -- more of a screed with musical accompaniment, really -- by the woman who hates Ted/Barney.

And the more I thought about the episode -- in particular, the long-awaited "Doogie Howser" homage at the very end -- and about the amount of effort put into what was essentially a throwaway sight gag, the more I grew to love "The Bracket." If it's not at the top of the "HIMYM" pantheon like a "Slap Bet" or "Single Stamina," it's only because of some of the dialogue, which as I said yesterday (at greater length than it deserved, given the episode's strengths) feels like the muscle that's coming back the slowest post-strike. The basic concept was great, and everyone got a hilarious bit of side business, whether it was Lily's dance, or Marshall not knowing what to do with his hands, or even Ted's insistence that Fake Baby was far, far worse than Lost At Sea.

So, to make up for not showing the episode quite enough love yesterday, and with so many people interested in the origins of the TedMosbyIsAJerk.com song, I decided to ask "HIMYM" co-creator Carter Bays for info on that -- and on Neil Patrick Harris' willingness, after all these years, to re-embrace his inner Doogie.

On the site and the song:

TedMosbyisajerk.com had kind of the same origins as Barney's Blog -- it was initially just a joke in the script, nothing more. Then we realized if we're saying "tedmosbyisajerk.com" on the show, we should buy that web address, just in case someone else bought it and threw a bunch of porn up there or something. So once we had the web address, we decided to put a little site up, with just some really simple text and a few images. And then Carl MacLaren, our associate producer, had this crazy idea of doing a song. Craig and I love any chance to write music, and I had just bought some cheap recording equipment, so we decided to write and record a little theme song for the website. Then the whole thing got out of hand, and it turned into this 20 minute opus. We wanted it to be like a long Patti Smith song, with this rambling poetry, or like the song "Turn Blue" by Iggy Pop.

Anyway, the whole thing happened really quickly -- Carl had the idea last week and we recorded it this weekend. The vocals are by Charlene Amoia, the actress who plays Wendy the Waitress on the show (hence the Wendy the Waitress reference at the end). We all sort of wrote it together -- some of it was written out, and some of it was just Charlene at the mic going off like Mick Jagger, which was hilarious to witness.

And yeah, it was surprising how quickly people devoured the whole thing. Although, as we were doing the "Wendy is the mother" backmasking, it did sort of feel like, okay, we're proud of ourselves for being this sneaky, but let's be honest, it's 2008, this'll be unveiled on the newsgroups within five minutes of the show airing. And
sure enough it was.

Vis a vis Doogie:

Neil loved doing the Doogie tag. Craig was on the set for this one, so I don't know if he said anything more about it, but I think he agreed it definitely felt like too great of an idea not to do at least once. And Season Three seemed like the time to do it.

HIMYM, "The Bracket": No bets, just slaps

Spoilers for tonight's March Madness-themed episode of "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I prepare some ribs for bedtime...

As we started running out of episodes of scripted series back in December and early January, I felt like I had to grade a lot of them on a curve, because they were clearly put into production without the usual polishing you would get if the writers were around to make changes. Everyone's back at work, but based on these early post-strike "HIMYM"s, I feel like a curve is still necessary. The episodes have been good -- this was actually one of the best of the season, pre or post-strike -- but in watching each one, I can spot certain elements that would have been fixed if Bays, Thomas and company weren't racing to get as many episodes on the air as quickly as they could.

Specifically, while the show has come back with its attention to structure and continuity intact, it feels like the writers' dialogue muscles atrophied during those three months on the picket. There was so much to love about "The Bracket," and yet periodically there would be these punchlines that made me cringe like I was watching an episode of "George Lopez" or something. I think of a line like Barney the master perjurer not wanting to talk about work, or even the payoff to the "aura of self-loathing and despair" exchange (the set-up was funnier than the punchline, because why would Barney be asking that question if it would apply to every woman he ever slept with?) and I imagine there was a lot of "We'll just leave that in until we come up with something better" talk in the writers room.

Fortunately, most of the hack-y stuff was finished by the time the opening credits rolled, and from then on I could focus on the good things about "The Bracket."

Specifically, I loved the focus on Barney -- and a triumphantly evil Barney, at that. When "The Yips" aired shortly before the strike, a lot of friends complained that a sensitive, emasculated Barney isn't remotely as funny as a Barney who does terrible things and gets away with it, and "The Bracket" was a superb argument for that point of view. Barney has done terrible things to all of these women -- and most of the bracket debates sounded much worse than anything he did to the Final Four -- and the complete lack of consequences for that behavior is a defining, memorable quality for the character. The way Barney always gets away with this stuff -- and that he can suck otherwise decent people like Lily, Marshall and Robin into his web of deceit and sleaze -- never gets old. One of the episode's many highlights was the competition to guess the reasons why Barney would view a museum as a great pick-up sight, and then that was quickly topped by the list of reasons why each woman on the bracket hates him. (Girl Who Thought I Was Jorge Posada may be my favorite, if only because I don't think Neil Patrick Harris remotely looks like Jorge.)

Some specific thoughts:

• Yes, I'm one of those "Simpsons" nerds who always has to do freeze frame or slo-mo through things like Barney's mental montage of past conquests, and so I caught that one of the women was Madeleine Albright -- a callback to a line from "The Yips" about Barney's inability to talk to women he doesn't intend to sleep with.
  
• As you would expect it to be, TedMosbyIsAJerk.com is a functioning website, and features another callback, to Ted's porno doppleganger.
  
• Did anyone take the back-to-back discussion of karma and lists as some kind of "My Name Is Earl" reference? I kept expecting Barney to make a mustache joke.
• "Have you ever fallen asleep while eating ribs?" is funny on many different levels at once. First, as an illustration of how well Ted knows Robin. Second, ribs are an inherently funny kind of food, because they're so messy. Third, the concept of eating them and dozing off while covered in rib goo is funny. Fourth, Robin's stupid giggling was also funny. I'm sure there are more levels to it than that, but the great thing about a Barney-centric episode is that he can carry most of the laughs and allow the writers to focus on one or two really funny bits of business for the other characters who may not be as hilarious when the spotlight's on them for the whole show.
• Another great throwaway gag: Marshall's inability to behave normally during the fake conversation at MacLaren's. ("Here are words... Laughter!")
• I've somehow missed nearly every second of the tournament this year. Do they still actually play "One Shining Moment," or has it been replaced by some equally coma-inducing bit of treacle? Maybe one of the "American Idol" coronation songs?
• Fifteen years -- and one career-redefining role in "Harold and Kumar" -- later, I'm glad Neil Patrick Harris is okay with a "Doogie Howser" joke. (For you young'uns, the music being played as Barney typed his blog at the end was the "Doogie" theme; every episode of that show would end with Doogie typing some earnest new life lesson in his electronic journal. You see, back in those days, we didn't have fancy things called blogs. We had word processors! They had blue screens and lousy Graphic User Interfaces, and we liked them! We loved them! Flibbledy-floo!)

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: How to lose a no in 10 times

Spoilers for "Ten Sessions," the Britney Spears-eriffic episode of "How I Met Your Mother," coming up just as soon as I introduce Ted and Stella to a little movie I like to call "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"...

Not that I expect the ratings to be notably higher than usual -- stunt-casting stopped moving the ratings needle years ago -- but if new viewers tuned in to see Britney(*), I wonder what they made of this one. As an example of story construction and grand romantic gestures -- two of the things that make "HIMYM" great -- it was a triumph. As an example of laugh-out-loud comedy? Meh.

((*) Before we go any further, might as well get this out of the way: Britney was fine. Not great, not awful; fine. She has plenty of experience at doing sketch comedy with her version of the Mickey Mouse Club, and she's been a pretty good "SNL" host -- albeit not as good as fellow MMC'er Justin Timberlake. She was overplaying a little bit here and there with the wide eyes and big smile, and I imagine a more trained comic actress could have done more with what was really a minor character, but she was fine. She did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the episode, and hopefully this will be one step of many on the road back to mental health.)

Anyway, I was so busy admiring all the clever things in "Ten Sessions" -- how the writers were able to cram in distinct feelings for all 10 (and bull sessions at McClaren's after most of them), how the script kept looping back around to reveal that Barney was the rude guy on the phone and Marshall was the guy who left the book in Stella's office (the latter felt very much like a time travel movie punchline, like Marty McFly teaching Chuck Berry how to play "Johnny B. Goode"), how awesome and sweet Ted's two-minute date was (complete with Ranjit the cabbie from the pilot) -- that it took me a while to realize that very little of it was ticklin' the ol' funny bone. I laughed a few times at throwaway jokes (Lily giving Barney a time out, Robin admitting that she suffers a little from the mustache thing), but more prominent gags like the game of Telephone at the movie theater or Marshall forgetting where he left the memory book felt very bad sitcom-y to me. When "HIMYM" is really clicking, it's both smart and funny. "Ten Sessions" was mostly just smart.

And, man, am I still annoyed by the Silverstone/Chalke/Spears kerfuffle. If I had any doubts before that the role of Stella (originally written for Alicia Silverstone, who bailed when Brit-Brit got cast) was originally planned as The Mother, they're gone now. Between Stella's reference to going out to a lame St. Patrick's Day party (no doubt where she lost her yellow umbrella) and the perfection of the two-minute date, everything about her smelled Mother. And unless Bill Lawrence's plans for the bonus final season of "Scrubs" (whether it airs on NBC or ABC) don't involve Sarah Chalke, it won't be logistically feasible to make her be the woman of Future Ted's talky dreams.

(I did briefly wonder how Stella's 8-year-old daughter fit into the world of Future Ted, but then realized that she'd be an adult by the period when Future Ted is boring his biological kids with this neverending story. Problem solved.)

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM, "No Tomorrow": Kissing the Barney-stone

Spoilers for "No Tomorrow," the first post-strike episode of "How I Met Your Mother," coming up just as soon as I do some drunk pocket-dialing...

Ahhhh, "HIMYM." Sweet, delicious, chocolate-y "HIMYM." No, wait -- that's the chocolate chip cookie I just ate. (Who knew that the local liquor store would have the best cookies in the state?) But "HIMYM" was pretty sweet, too. Not the best episode of the season (that's still "How I Met Everyone Else"), but after three months-plus with no show, I would have taken a "We're Not From Here" right now. And "No Tomorrow" was a lot funnier than "We're Not From Here."

A few friends of mine who are fans of the show complained that Ted's transformation this season into a willing wingman for Barney made them like him a lot less. I didn't have that problem -- if anything, the schmoopie, self-righteous Ted of season one could be a lot more annoying -- and I thought it was a viable character arc to go in after the split from Robin. But that arc's over now, with Ted having hit rock bottom as a player after hearing all the pocket-dialed(*) messages. Between Future Ted's narration at the beginning and end of the episode and the return of the mother's yellow umbrella, the show seems to be moving quickly towards introducing the woman of Ted's dreams.

((*) I've never had the pocket-dialing problem, but rather deal with pocket-photographing. Every couple of days, I need to go in and delete a dozen or so completely black photos that were taken when the cameraphone button got accidentally pushed as I was walking. Anybody else have that problem?)

I do wonder, though, how this Britney Spears/Alicia Silverstone/Sarah Chalke kerfuffle will complicate matters. For those of you not keeping up with the latest, Silverstone was going to be in next week's episode as a woman Ted was chasing. Then the producers -- no doubt worrying about cancellation and desperate for anything to goose the numbers -- cast Britney to play a small role, and allegedly Silverstone and her people didn't appreciate being upstaged. So Silverstone bowed out, and the producers brought in Chalke at the last minute.

Now, I haven't seen next week's episode, but as soon as I heard they were casting Silverstone to play a potential Ted love interest, my reaction was, "Okay, that's the mom." Just seemed to click for some reason. But with "Scrubs" apparently returning for next season (either on NBC or ABC), Chalke's not going to be available for more than next week's show, even though tonight's episode implies Ted's going to meet the mom very soon, and... Okay, now my brain hurts a little, so let's get back to discussing "No Tomorrow" and deal with next week when it comes.

So Ted hits rock bottom, but I enjoyed spending most of the episode seeing Ted's beer goggle version of events, and of seeing Ted and, especially, Barney marvel at the laws of karma turning upside down. ("Shockingly deep bellybuttons" is just a funny turn of phrase.) The only thing the story missed, I think, was for the sober flashback version of events to be in even starker contrast to what we originally saw.

People have been asking ever since "Dowisetrepla" when Marshall and Lily would be moving out, and now we have our answer: not until the crooked floors get fixed, or until the producers contrive another systemic problem with that money pit to keep the living arrangements status quo. I was surprised that Marshall didn't start ranting about the smell on top of the floor problem ("First it reeks of sewage and now it's crooked!"), but the increasing tilt of the camera was a nice touch, as were Marshall's conflicting lies about the friendly but racist ghost.

One last point: Barney's area code monologue was maybe my favorite thing Neil Patrick Harris has said all season, and not just because I was once a possessor of a 973 number (and now have an area code so far removed from the city that it wasn't even worth mentioning).

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: 8 simple rules

Spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I leap in slow motion...

On this season's "HIMYM" vs. Sitcom scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing "HIMYM" at its most distinct (say, "How I Met Everyone Else") and 1 representing a leftover "Suddenly Susan" script with the names changed to protect the innocent (say, "We're Not From Here"), I'd have to put "The Platinum Rule" at a solid 9, maybe even a 9.5. Flashbacks within flashbacks -- with characters referring back and forth to the previous flashbacks to explain why they're reliving them -- Barney presenting another dating rule, a bit of meta main character mockery with the talk of how much Ted obsesses over his stupid hair, more anti-Canada bigotry ("What's the opposite of name-dropping")... Really, the only thing keeping it from a 10 is that I'm pretty sure Lily has never before sported the hairstyle she had in the neighbor flashbacks, even though those scenes would have taken place not long after "Slap Bet." That's the sort of continuity error the show doesn't usually make.

Then again, maybe "Platinum Rule" ought to score higher. There's a reason I've spent so much of this season harping on what is and isn't a "HIMYM"-y episode, and it's that the way Bays, Thomas and company play with structure is at least as important as -- and sometimes more important than -- the characters, or the plots, or even the jokes. Told sequentially, the three storylines here would have gotten repetitive and predictable in a hurry (Robin's in particular; the guy didn't remotely seem like an ex-hockey player, and overall they have yet to crack the code for giving her a good dating subplot), but the way they kept folding in and out of each other became part of the fun. Sequences like the three-tiered break-up, with Robin and Marshall/Lily trying to dump graciously while Barney was candid to a fault with Wendy the Waitress worked precisely because they were placed next to each other in that "Slaughterhouse Five" chronological style that "HIMYM" does so well.

I've liked some of Barney's previous rules better than this one -- Lemon Law's hard to top, and Crazy/Hot did come with a visual aid -- but there were enough amusing moments to compensate, whether Marshall performing charades for "We just go across the hall!" or the gang ordering Barney to marry Wendy the Waitress to keep from losing the bar. And Neil Patrick Harris had some wonderful slapstick moments, with both his slide across the apartment to prevent Ted's exit and his slo-mo leap to slap the taste of burger out of Marshall's mouth.

Meanwhile, I'm still undecided on whether "HIMYM" is going to make the cut for my Top 10 list for '07. "Slap Bet" and "Single Stamina," the high points of season two, both aired at the tail end of '06, and season three has been up and down. Since I'm planning to pair the Top 10 list with a list of great episodes (or even moments) from shows that didn't make the list (either ones that just missed the cut or ones that are usually not that great but had a transcendent show), I'll have room to mention "HIMYM" somewhere, but my question is this: if you had to pick a single episode of the series that aired in this calendar year as the best, what would it be? "Showdown"? "How I Met Everyone Else"? Something else?

HIMYM: Barney's secret

Brief spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I find my framed Reggie Jackson photo...

A pretty good episode, I thought. Not great, and kind of all over the place, but enough funny moments and distinctly "HIMYM"-y elements that I enjoyed it.

I worried that the stunt-casted supermodels would derail the show, but fortunately, their appearances were brief and mostly an excuse for Barney to make a fool of himself. (And was it just me, or did it sound like Heidi Klum's dialogue was being looped in reverse whenever she uttered the German phrase for "yips"?) I liked insecure, yippy Barney, but the genuine article is still funnier; the scene where he explained his "investments" ("I foresee agressive growth in my future!") was probably the best thing in the episode.

I loved the mocking of Robin's gym look ("Oh, hey, lesbian prison guard," Barney mistaking her for a man) and actually wish there had been more of that. The gang playing Top That Insult is one of this show's most reliable weapons, and usually the target is either Ted or Barney. Still, Ted and Robin each losing their attraction for the other once and for all was a welcome, funny touch.

Wayne Brady was funnier in his previous appearance; "closeted gay guy tries to act like girls aren't gross" is a pretty played-out joke. (Plus, the meta part kept getting in the way, given the sexual orientations of the two actors and how convincingly Neil Patrick Harris plays a ladies man.) On the other hand, I thought Stephanie Faracy was well-cast as Rhonda the Man-Maker, and I liked the montage of Rhonda coming up with one-liners to describe her conquests, only to fall short because the last one just happened.

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: It was awesome! You just got slapped!

Spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I compose a song to celebrate the occasion...

What is this feeling that's put you in your place?
The hot red burning on the side of your face?
You feel the blood rush to your cheek.
Tears start to fill your eyes,
and your lips are trembling and you can't speak,
and you're trying,
you're trying not to cry...
You just got slapped!

Oh! It was everything I had hoped for! And even more! Because Marshall wrote and performed a song about it!

I have no idea whether that was an original Jason Segel composition like the legendary "Lady L" from "Freaks and Geeks," but The Slapsgiving Song was the perfect capper to a mostly-perfect sequel to the original "Slap Bet."

I say "mostly-perfect" for two reasons. One, because of the glaring continuity error in the montage of the first two slaps, where the first slap showed was actually not the first of the five slaps in question (which was Marshall's mighty backhand at the apartment) but rather the first slap of the episode (at McLaren's, back when Marshall thought he won the bet because Robin said she used to be married). For a show so geeky about its own continuity, in an episode that was one long ode to the continuity geeks in the audience, it was a glaring flub, and one I'd like to blame on the writers strike in some way. If not, fellow dorks, start composing your no-prize letters now to explain it.

(UPDATE: I checked with one of the producers, and he said they want to fix the clip of the first slap for future reruns, DVDs, etc., if possible. Sometimes, a mistake is just a mistake.)

Two, while the original slap episode featured two perfectly hilarious stories in the bet itself and the revelation of Robin's musical past, the A-story of "Slapsgiving" was a far more sober meditation on the nature of Ted and Robin's post-split friendship. It was really well played by Radnor and Smulders, and something the show has needed to address head-on for quite a while, but every time they cut away from Marshall and Barney and to anything Ted and Robin related, I began to feel like Milhouse in "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show," on the verge of tears because they haven't gotten to the fireworks factory yet. (If I had thought to record it, I could make my whiny "When are they gonna get back to the slap bet?!?!?!" my new ringtone.)

Still, the slap culmination lived up to the advance billing. Like Barney, I had wondered why the writers/Marshall tipped their (large) hands about the date and time of the third slap, as it would take away the surprise that made the second slap so much fun. But by having Barney question that and Marshall act unconcerned, it only made the whole thing funnier. I did wonder whether we were being set up for a bunch of Mamet-style double-switches and reversals -- finding out that Barney wasn't really scared of the slaps but was just acting that way to guilt Lily into postponing it, or that Lily and Marshall were in cahoots all along -- but the straightforward approach worked fine on its own. And did I mention there was a song at the end? And that Barney, even in pain, supplied the "whoa oh oh oh"s?

A few other quick thoughts:

-I think it should be mandatory that Robin have to say the word "sorry" at least once every other episode, if not every episode. It's never not funny, even when it's not the focus of a scene.

-Also, I talked to one of my many Canadian relatives yesterday and wished her a belated Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, and she told me, "Oh, nobody really cares about that up here." Of course, she's a non-French speaker living in Montreal, so her view on any things Canadian may not be representative.

-I knew a girl once who had a pierced Brosnan. She said it felt like her timothy'd Dalton, only suaver and with a better sense of humor.

-Of course Barney dressed as Borat for Halloween (sort of) last year; as I mentioned in my discussion of the "Douchebag of the Year" sketch on "SNL," Borat is one of the holy trinity of douchebag impressions, along with Ace Ventura and Austin Powers. I love Barney, but the guy definitely has a lot of d-bag pre-requisites.

-The Ted and Robin story wasn't all angst and fighting. After all, what other show would offer up Orson Bean (in another bit of classic "HIMYM" unreliable narration) playing a 41-year-old who says things like "We's gonna get silly, bitches!"?

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: Shattered glass

Haven't seen last night's "Journeyman" yet, but hope to get to it later today or tomorrow. In the meantime, "How I Met Your Mother" spoilers coming up just as soon as I literally blow my own mind...

In my ongoing "HIMYM vs. Sitcom" analysis of this season, I'd say "Spoiler Alert" fell somewhere in the middle. The notion of the shattered illusions and the revisited flashbacks were very much a "HIMYM" device, but the scene at the end where Marshall stops all the fighting with his big announcement felt like someone on the writing staff had just watched "The One With the Embryos" episode of "Friends." I'm not saying "Friends" invented that conceit or that no other comedy should get to use it, but it was a very traditional sitcom kind of moment.

While the various revelations were funny, particularly all the descriptions of Lily's chewing ("It sounds like cufflinks going up a vacuum cleaner!") and Ted being an annoying corrector (which led to the great Barney and Marshall exchange of "Don't they teach vocabulary in Canada?" "They literally don't!"), I have some logic questions about the shattered illusion concept. As originally introduced, the reason for the illusions was a desire to sleep with someone -- "You're driving the I Want to Have Sex With Her Bus, and it's got a huge blind spot." -- but then it expanded, so that Robin never noticed Lily's chewing, and the guys never noticed Ted's correcting, etc. Usually, when the show introduces an idea like this or Lemon Law or the Crazy/Hot scale, there are some very specific rules laid out about it, which only makes the applications funnier. If they'd mentioned some kind of best friend corollary from the start -- especially with some convoluted but understandable logic of its own -- I wouldn't have spent so much of the episode's second half wondering if Robin's dream kiss with Vacation Robin didn't hint at something deeper, whether Marshall wanted more than bromance with Ted, etc. Not a huge problem, but not up to top standards.

Couple of other thoughts:

• While Ted was annoying with the correcting, at the same time I could relate to his hatred of the pandemic misuse of "literally," which drives me nuts almost as much as the bastardization of "push the edge of the envelope" (which suggests trying to expand the boundaries of something) to "push the envelope" (which suggests sliding an envelope around a table). Hi, my name is Alan, and I'm sometimes a grammar nerd. Anybody have their own linguistic pet peeve?
• Marshall singing his daily routine -- "The Salvation Army does not fight fair.." -- was awesome.
• In the three years later flashforward, Ted was not wearing a ring. Sloppiness, or a suggestion that the writers don't intend for Ted to get married until near the end of the series? (This, of course, assumes that the series will be around for three-plus more years.)
• I have no comment on this, but it's too funny not to reproduce: "Why do you think I call her Chewbacca?" "I assume it's because she's loyal, wears shiny belts and I resemble a young Harrison Ford."

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: Everything comes down to poo

Spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I plan an expedition to the summit of Mt. Waddington...

After some major improvement the last few weeks, "Dowisetrepla" (and did anyone figure that one out before the scene in the cab?) felt more like the season's early episodes: some funny moments on the sidelines, but a plotline that felt like something you could find on a dozen late '90s sitcoms. They tried to spice up the apartment hunt with some "HIMYM"-y touches like Future Ted's constant "That's what he should have said"s, but watching it I kept thinking of Craig Thomas' line about how they like to do the kind of episodes that only they would do, and for the most part, this wasn't one of them. And I don't just say that because Maggie Wheeler (aka Janice from "Friends") played the realtor.

I got a kick out of Robin again being shamed about her Canadian heritage (even though, according to my own Canadian relations, Mt. Logan is the tallest mountain in their great country, not Waddington), and of the entire "Mosby boys" sequence in the final act (I like that Robin's much less indulgent of Ted now that they're not dating), and Marshall and Lily actually being able to see the Dowisetrepla word jumple, and anything to do with the comically-large bottle of champagne, but most of the episode -- even Barney being Barney with the commitment-obsessed bimbo -- felt slightly off.

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: Walk of shame

Brief spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I disinfect my couch...

Confidence in season... rising. I don't know that this one was as funny as last week's flashback-packed episode, but that's two in a row that reminded me of a conversation I once had with Craig Thomas. I was asking him about the way he and Bays and the other writers like to play with time and unreliable narration, and he said something like, "We like to do episodes that only we would do," if that makes any sense. Several of the episodes from the start of the season felt like they could have been slightly-altered scripts from a half-dozen '90s NBC sitcoms, where these last two have felt uniquely "HIMYM."

Last week obviously played up the chronological comedy, where here what worked were the focus on Marshall and the use of one social ritual (job recruitment) appearing indistinguishable from another (seduction) -- all of it conveniently explained to us by Barney.

The Porno Ted plot probably could have been done on other shows, but the presence of Barney -- and the echoes of "Slap Bet" -- still made it feel specific to this show.

My only complaint -- assuming it's not being done intentionally to mess with viewers like me -- is that, just as Busy Philipps showed up without getting a single scene with Jason Segel, John Cho comes and goes without getting to bounce off Neil Patrick Harris for the "Harold & Kumar" reunion. What's next: Nicholas Brendon plays Robin's new boyfriend in another one of those completely self-contained B-plots that doesn't feature any of the other actors?

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: Meet cute or meet crazy?

Spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I eat a sandwich...

Whew. Crisis averted, at least for one night. Because that? That was the "HIMYM" I know and love. A plot with all five characters just hanging out at the bar and telling jokes at each other's expense, multiple flashbacks (often to the same event), Future Ted finding creative ways to work around parts of the story he doesn't remember (Blah-Blah) or can't tell the kids (eating sandwiches), another Barney theory on dating (complete with visual aid this time) being proved correct and an extended appearance by Ted's Jewfro. (Though it's not actually supposed to be a Jewfro, as Ted's a gentile.) Hell, even the flashforward to Combover Marshall and Nancy Reagan Lily, which was so depressing the last time (save the "NYC Lawyer Captures Nessie" headline in the background) was upbeat and funny this time.

So it's clear Bays and Thomas still remember how to do it right; they've just been going too far in focusing on the new Ted and Robin status quo. Hopefully, this one wasn't an aberration but the start of a resurgence.

What did everybody else think?

Diamonds are for Mondays

Spoilers for "Chuck" and "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I rip apart this headboard...

Interesting approach for "Chuck" episode four, which was fairly light on the laughs -- minimal Casey and almost no time spent with Captain Awesome or at the Buy More -- while working to give some emotional heft to Sarah and the inevitable Chuck/Sarah 'ship. I missed the Nerd Herd and Harry Tang, but, as with episode two, I'm glad Schwartz and Fedak want us to genuinely understand and care about these characters. Chuck needed to find out about Sarah and Bryce sooner or later, but I like that the bigger obstacle to their cover becoming an actual relationship was the matter of Sarah's secrets. (Dammit, there's that word again! Sorry.) Yvonne Strahovski could probably still use a good fight trainer -- though with the outfits they keep having her fight in, I'm not sure how much of the audience even notices -- but she and Levi have great chemistry and she did a really nice job with "My middle name is Lisa."

Other things I liked: Casey falling for the same stunt that got him in trouble in Prague, and Casey -- who somehow got his pants on even with his hands in that position -- trying to make nice with the mom and daughter in the elevator; Chuck seeking refuge in the hotel business center and showing off his mad label-printing skills to protect the diamond; and Carina with her remote-controlled jet ski. If I were in a letter grade-giving mood, I'd say, B, B+ episode...

... which is just a shade better than what I'd give the latest "How I Met Your Mother." I'm still concerned, as we're four weeks into the season and there hasn't been a really strong episode yet, but this one didn't bug me nearly as much as the last two. I liked Robin's breakfast encounter with the little kid (and remain amused as always that Brad Rowe, as the dad, continues to get work entirely on the basis of his vague resemblance to Brad Pitt, rather than any identifiable talent of his own), and I really liked Ted and Barney belittling all of Marshall's attempts to assert his own game.

Still, Ted and Robin remain the show's weakest links, comedy-wise, so this pattern of one getting the A-story and one the B-story isn't a good one; when they were dating last year, we were guaranteed to have one plot or the other devoted to some combo or Barney, Marshall and Lily. These two stories had some funnier moments than the last couple of episodes and I understand the writers' desire to start the season focusing on how each of Ted and Robin is moving on from their relationship. I just don't want it to go on much longer.

Unfortunately, I have a nagging suspicion that it will. When I interviewed Thomas and Bays back at press tour, they were rattling off a bunch of upcoming stories they had planned for the characters this season, and one of them mentioned that Marshall and Lily would begin looking for their own place. I asked what else they had in mind for those two, and both guys metaphorically scratched their heads and said that, at the moment, that was kind of it. I know we have Marshall's next slap coming up sometime in October, and at some point I guess we'll get to see the apartment hunt, but unless we go heavy on Barney storylines soon, this could wind up being a lost season.

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: I want to ride my tricycle, I want to ride my trike

I spent most of last night either watching Yanks-Indians or curled up in a ball on the floor of my basement thinking about Yanks-Indians. I'll be watching and blogging other Monday shows like "Heroes" and "Journeyman" later today, but I did watch "How I Met Your Mother" last night in hopes it would cheer me up from the carnage. (It didn't.) Spoilers coming up just as soon as I butter up my legs...

At what point should I be worried here? That's two duds in a row, and even the season premiere was just a pretty good episode of "HIMYM." If this were a three episode run in the middle of the year, I would shrug it off, but a slump at the beginning of a season -- especially one where the show's trying to forge a new direction, post-Ted/Robin -- is a little troubling. Not Chicken Little troubling, but still.

The Robin subplot was particularly lame, just an excuse for that one bit of physical comedy in the bathroom. I like Cobie Smulders, but she's not Lucille Ball enough (or even Amanda Bynes enough) to make that worthwhile. (Maybe the most interesting thing about that whole portion of the episode was wondering whether Doctor Awesome was in some way the show returning fire at "Chuck" for the creation of Captain Awesome -- who's also a doctor, btw. When informed of the Captain's existence back at press tour, the "HIMYM" creators and Neil Patrick Harris seemed both amused and defiant; "A war is brewing," NPH said.)

As for the A-story, while I appreciate Future Ted establishing that there are some stories on the show that he's not telling his kids -- and which in turn explains why he suggested back in "The Pineapple Incident" that he never saw Trudy again -- the story itself felt lacking and, like Robin's story, kind of sitcommy. (When "HIMYM" is working, it has the appearance but not the style of a traditional sitcom.)

I've never liked the device of a character disappearing from a date for long stretches to consult with his or her pals, and given that Ted had essentially blown them off and then vanished for a very long time, I'm surprised the girls didn't either storm into the bedroom, demand their coats and go. Trudy also seemed to behave differently from what I remember of "The Pineapple Incident," though you could ascribe some of that to the presence of her sorority sister. Either way, the "HIMYM" continuity nerd in me is annoyed Ted never asked her where the pineapple came from.

I'm glad the writers apparently let Ted go through with the tricycle -- too many shows decide the funniest outcome to any story where the main character might get laid is to deny him the pleasure -- but most of the good stuff took place on the fringes of the story, like Barney and pantsless Marshall playing WII and discussing British slang, or Marshall saying, "Oh, so it's a metaphorical belt?" a split second before the flashback to Barney pulling out the actual thing.

if these three episodes have a common thread, it's that they've largely focused on Ted and Robin's love lives, and I think it's obvious to everyone by now that they're the two weakest parts of the ensemble. They can certainly have their moments, like the Robin Sparkles video, but Barney, Marshall and Lily are all better-equipped to handle the real heavy lifting, comedy-wise. Last season worked so well because they were together for almost all of it, and their happy couplehood allowed them to hang back a bit and work in support of the other characters. Now that they're split up, forever, the writers clearly feel like they have to give them both something to do, and so far it hasn't been that interesting.

What did everybody else think?

HIMYM: Steinfeld did it!

Quick spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I clean my Glock...

On my drive home from work, I was mentally plotting my night of TV watching/blogging, it occurred to me that, of the three sitcoms I'd currently consider the best on TV ("30 Rock" and "The Office" being the other two), "HIMYM" rarely reached the heights of the other two ("Slap Bet" excepted) but was more consistently funny...

...so, of course, I have to be rewarded for this not so brilliant insight with an incredibly lame, sitcommy episode where one of the plots (Ted and Barney pretend to be tourists to pick up women) was lifted wholesale from a "Seinfeld" episode. Given that Barney makes a "Steinfeld" reference later in the episode, you'd think the writers would at least own up to it the way Mike Judge had Michael Bolton in "Office Space" admit that his embezzling scheme was used in "Superman III."

(Judge, by the way, has always insisted that he never saw "Superman III," but that once someone pointed it out to him while reading an early draft, he felt compelled to cop to it because the audience -- maybe not the whole audience, but some of it -- would know, and "Superman III" was a lot less popular than "Seinfeld.")

I'm not sure I've ever laughed less at an episode of this show. When even Barney's smutty punchlines are falling flat, you know it's just a bad night at the office.

That said, a few interesting things to note:

• Robin and Barney have yet another bonding moment when they drink together to the end of Vacation Robin, and Robin has no problem telling Barney about her erotic dreams. At this point, is there anyone in the audience who doesn't think the two of them are going to get together eventually?
• And speaking of the distant future, I like that combovers will still exist in 2029 -- as will Nancy Reagan's hairstyle -- but Marshall and Lily's bickering in both the present and future felt tonally off. It's not that I don't believe they'd fight, but that the pettiness and anger of it doesn't seem like something they'd do, not even after getting married. Maybe after 22 years of marriage, but the fundamental schmoopiness of their relationship is one of the defining characteristics of both Marshall and Lily, and I'm annoyed that it got tossed out for the sake of a flash-forward punchline to a subplot that wasn't very good to begin with.
• Also, was I the only one hoping that Combover Marshall would be slapping Barney?

Ah, well. They can't all be "Slap Bet." Or even "Wait For It..." I'm sure next week'll be just fine.

What did everybody else think?

Oh, and no: I'm not just annoyed at Ted's anti-Jersey rant. I've never claimed to be from New York, even when I lived just across the river in Hoboken. I know my place and am fine with it.