Mildly Better Mother Quest With The Second Season Of How I Met Your Mother!

The Good: Funny, Decent performances, Better plots, Sense of going somewhere, Fine DVD bonus features
The Bad: Still largely predictable and formulaic, Most of the characters still don't pop
The Basics: The mediocre series returns in a second boxed set that has more a sense of going somewhere, despite treading where virtually every sitcom has gone before.


I've been watching a lot of mediocre stuff lately. After suffering through the first season DVD set for 'Til Death, I tried to clean my palate with something I thought would be a dramatic improvement, namely the first season of How I Met Your Mother (reviewed here!). Alas, I was a bit wrong. When I say "a bit," I mean, "wow, that show was nowhere near as good as I expected it." Don't try to stick that back in where "a bit" was used, it doesn't work grammatically. I’m still not sure why I suffered through the second season boxed set of How I Met Your Mother. But I did.

Hopefully, this may keep you from making a similar mistake.

Despite being the story of Ted, who is telling his children in the future the story of how he met the woman who would become their mother, the season opens with the thrust being that Marshall and Lily being broken up. Lily has run off to San Francisco, abandoning Marshall and it's up to his friends Ted, Barney and Robin to cheer him up. Lily soon returns, fences are slowly mended and Ted begins to focus once again on Robin, who seems to have warmed up some to Ted.

As the season progresses, though, the show soon slips into its familiar patterns. In other words, despite the narrative technique of supposedly being a love story in reverse, How I Met Your Mother becomes a fairly standard and often bland sitcom. This season, the plotlines that have been done to death include: a bachelor party, the reminiscing about a car that is now gone, missing a flight and causing a fight, woman getting jealous when ex-boyfriend goes out on a real date, and trying to teach the mean boss a lesson. I write these plots in the most generic terms because that is often the way they feel in this show, like the writer's room is simply checking off a list of previously done concepts in the history of sitcoms and trying to get bingo.

The only episode that follows these pretty hackneyed plots that nevertheless works is the Barney episode "Single Stamina." In this admittedly fun episode, Barney's brother - who is virtually identical to Barney save that he is black and gay - shows up and accompanies the gang on a night of heavy partying until he reveals to Barney that he and his partner are planning on getting married. This leads Barney to rail against, not only gay marriage but all marriage. This rift becomes a real and traumatic problem for the brothers and makes for an entertaining episode.

For those keeping score, that's one out of twenty-two, not good odds for buying a boxed set of DVDs! How I Met Your Mother seems to hinge on the idea that the audience will be so impressed by either the narrative technique - all of the episodes are flashback stories being told by a much older Ted in the future - or the cast. But in truth, the narrative technique of setting the episodes as flashbacks barely amuses and does not cover the fact that even with the weird chronological jumps within each story, the show is basically a very simple and typical sitcom.

This is made somewhat more insulting by the fact that in the second season (until the final episode's last shots) the series is not truly about the story of how Ted met the mother of his children as Robin is repeatedly declared not the kid's mother - she is referred to as "Aunt Robin" in the future. So while this season has a slightly better sense that the show might be going somewhere, it's still not there yet.

As a result of the plots being largely standard, it's up to the characters to impress and they don't often do that here. The main characters in the second season are:

Ted Mosby - This is supposedly his story, though much of the action in this season revolves around Lily and Marshall, his two friends who are (at various points) married, broken up and engaged. He is fixated on Robin, a news anchor, who he is dating and working through all sorts of dating problems with, including their first fights and figuring out what to do with things left over from previous relationships,

Robin - Now dating Ted, she balances her life between the news station and time with him and their mutual friends. In many ways, she is simply an accessory to Ted and the series,

Barry Stinson - An undefined businessman who is incredibly successful at what he does. Almost always wearing a suit, he exudes an aura of professionalism and class, until he opens his mouth. He is a womanizer and a bit of a jerk. However, he proves himself to not be the traditional television jerk by openly embracing his brother and having a heart for his friends,

Lily - A kindergarten teacher who has gone rogue as an artist. Returning somewhat defeated from San Francisco to try to put her life and relationship with Marshall back together, she finds herself frustrated to discover that she may have damaged things beyond repair. While broken up from Marshall, she exhibits quite a bit of jealousy and she pours her heart into acting, painting and other art. She works to win Marshall back,

and Marshall - Lily's husband (eventually) and best friend of Ted, he's a moody law student who is very tall. Marshall clearly loves Lily and is damaged by her leaving and is not too quick to take her back.

This leads to the question of why does Marshall take Lily back, why do they reconcile? The problem with How I Met Your Mother - Season 2 is it does not satisfactorily address that. Instead, they come back together through a sense of inertia; we know they end up with one another, so they do. It's, sadly, pretty much that simply.

How I Met Your Mother initially drew me in with its cast and it was all that sold me on picking up the second season and sitting down and watching it. I had been a fan of Jason Segal from prior roles I had seen him in and Alysson Hannigan had truly impressed me with her portrayal of Willow on Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!). But this series does not so stretch either of those actors, instead using them in very safe ways that fit what we know of their abilities already.

It is Neil Patrick Harris as Barney who makes the show anything above simply bearable. Unlike his wholesome characters from Doogie Howser, M.D. and Stark Raving Mad, here he plays a character who is smarmy and unlike anything else I had seen Harris in. He is able to convincingly and consistently play callous and sell it perfectly. Moreover, when he has to, he makes it completely believable that his character can be motivated by compassion, yet he keep's within Barney's character at those moments. It's a diverse performance for him and it works perfectly.

On DVD, the series adds very little to what was originally presented on television. The boxed set has commentary tracks on several episodes and they are good. They are both informative and some are very funny. Some are even better than the standard episode because they are not typical. There is a pretty typical gag reel and a few behind-the-scenes featurettes. They add enough that an obsessed fan will find enjoyment from them but the typical (and yes, bored) viewer will not likely find it enough to shell out money for this set.

While there's the sense that the series is getting better, it's still too safe, too typical and just not funny or original enough. There are enough shows like that. It would be nice to see some of the talent in this show freed from it in order to pursue something better.

For other works with Jason Segel, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Friends With Benefits
Bad Teacher
Despicable Me
I Love You, Man
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Freaks And Geeks

6/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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How I Met Your Mother Season 1: An Old Idea Told A New Way, Mostly.

The Good: Moments of humor, Interesting concept, Generally decent performances
The Bad: Characters are pretty much sitcom standards, Loss of aspect ratio, Mediocre DVD bonuses
The Basics: A strikingly average comedy is made into an equally average DVD presentation that robs the viewer of part of the visual experience of the show while adding little else.


Every now and then, I find myself watching something that is truly unspectacular and I know it from the beginning. In the case of How I Met Your Mother, I found myself surprised that I picked up the DVD boxed set when being thoroughly underwhelmed while watching it on television. The show is not bad, but it's not as new and clever as it tries to sell itself as and it has some significant structural flaws that begin to come out even in the first season.

Billed as a love story in reverse, the first season of How I Met Your Mother on DVD comes with one immediate and inexplicable drawback; the show on the discs is not in widescreen format. Originally shot and aired with a more theatrical aspect ratio, the DVD makes the change to standard television proportions and this causes some loss of the scale of the show. Shots where characters are at extreme ends of the screen thus suffer from pan and scan cuts and it does have an effect on the show, which is surprising because as a comedy one might not think it made that much of a difference.

Beginning in 2030, Ted Mosby sits his young son and daughter down to tell them the story of how he met the woman who would become their mother. Recounting, then, life in 2005, with Ted living with his two friends from college, Marshall and Lily, Ted sees their engagement as an impetus to find his own true love and he does searching for her. He meets Robin, falls in love with her, though they do not quite get together, and the two couples, accompanied by their perpetually single, womanizing friend Barney, begin to hang out as a group and plan for the future.

Ted and Robin have much more of an on-again/off-again relationship in the first season, despite Ted being hung up on her. But the difficult aspect of watching the first season on DVD is that by the end of the first episode, the rest of the season is pointless. The title of the series, How I Met Your Mother, is a misnomer. This is not a show about how Ted met the mother of his two future children, this is the story of how he killed time before meeting their mother. By the end of the "Pilot," Ted admits to his children that Robin is not their mother. So the whole "love story in reverse" isn't so much that as a building up to something that could take years.

The problem here is that it's hard to care. In many ways, How I Met Your Mother is just a typical sitcom featuring a young couple (Marshall and Lily) and three single friends. Ted is obsessing for a whole season on the woman who becomes "Aunt Robin" and this becomes problematic for those who want the story to go ahead and get on with it. I'm all for building things up, I have a love for long movies where not much happens until the final moment when three hours of characters being miserable is washed away by one woman's smile, but How I Met Your Mother soon becomes an experiment in pointlessness. Indeed, virtually every character on the show is more interesting than either Ted or Robin.

But the first season definitely suffers from a lack of focus; Ted's on-again, off-again relationship with Robin puts him in the path of multiple women, none of whom seem to be the titled mother. The result is a sense of, "Why is this guy telling this story?!" For a sitcom, it makes sense to have all of these random relationships that might eventually yield the woman of Ted's dreams, but from the storytelling aspect of "This is how I met your mother . . ." telling the story of all the women he was with before that just doesn't cut it. Half the episodes, I find myself saying "Get on with it!"

Or I simply surrender and allow myself to be amused by the upscale neanderthal, Barney. Barney is very much a "type," the single, smarmy, womanizing friend who acts as a foil to the Lily/Marshall relationship. He is largely self-centered, highly successful in a financial sense and brutally honest about his desire not to commit or be in a long-term relationship. He's a cruiser and his advice to Ted is often counter of that of Lily and Marshall, despite Ted's desire to have what they have.

And in many ways, this situation comedy becomes the average sitcom with episodic bits that do not follow chronologically and do not quite add up to anything bigger. There's the episode where Ted and Marshall fight over who gets the apartment (the difference from the standard sitcom is there's an actual swordfight for it!), there's Ted's attempts to get to know Robin better through convoluted means like throwing parties that she can come to, and Lily meeting Marshall's family . . . with hilarious results. Yes, the plots become remarkably straightforward and common, despite the narrative technique.

But it's worthwhile to understand who the characters in the first season are. The principles include:

Ted Mosby - Single guy, this is his story. He is mostly fixated on Robin and he lives with his two friends from college, who are now engaged, Lily and Marshall. While he has affection for Robin, he finds himself attracted to other women and desperate to discover who his true soulmate might be. He is an architect who puts a lot of thought into every decision he makes, until he allows his friends to supersede his judgment time and again,

Robin - Interested Ted as a friend, his immediate pursuit of her freaks her out and she withdraws some. She works at a local television news station and is just getting to know Ted and his weird friends, though she seems to bond quickly enough with Lily,

Barney Stinson - An undefined businessman who is incredibly successful at what he does. Almost always wearing a suit, he exudes an aura of professionalism and class, until he opens his mouth. He is a womanizer and a bit of a jerk,

Lily - A kindergarten teacher who is engaged and later married to Marshall. She is concerned about having freakishly large children and works at being an artist. When opportunities arise, she is not one to not take them,

and Marshall - Lily's husband and best friend of Ted, he's a moody law student who is very tall. Marshall clearly loves Lily and is trying to figure out how to balance time between Lily and his best friend.

How I Met Your Mother drew me in with its cast. Neil Patrick Harris plays Barney and he's the highlight of the show. His performance is downright smarmy and unlike anything else I had seen Harris in. He's come a long way since Doogie Howser, M.D. and that is refreshing. He is funny and his performance truly is a different performance for him.

But it was Jason Segal and Alyson Hannigan who drew me in. Segal was amazingly awkward and sometimes creepy in his role on the short-lived but wonderful Freaks And Geeks (reviewed here!). I've been waiting for him to get another role that was decent and while his portrayal of Marshall is sometimes derivative of how he played Nick, it's usually different enough to justify my faith in him as an actor and he continues to develop a pretty wonderful comedic sense.

But it was Hannigan who sealed the deal and got me to pick this boxed set up. After coming into her own in the sixth season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!), Hannigan returns to her comedic sensibilities in a way that is more worthy of her than some of her endeavors. Yes, her performance in this is better than her stint in Date Movie (panned here!), but it seems she is often typecast or used in the same way to evoke humor. Once you've seen Hannigan bug out her eyes to get a laugh, as she does when she sees the giant turkey in the Thanksgiving episode, you've seen it. What else?

The problem is, this series does not seem to have the answer to that question. Outside Harris, the show suffers because all of the performers who are playing types fall within the safe niche of the casting. They are not stretched as actors, they simply fill the slot that was originally carved out for each of them.

On DVD, the series adds very little to what was originally presented on television and with the aspect ratio change, it does take something away. The boxed set has commentary tracks on several episodes and the third disc includes a very standard gag reel. As well, there is a yearbook featurette, but it's not terribly exciting. The truth is, the DVD bonus features do not add enough value to this boxed set to make it a worthwhile investment for those who have simply been watching the series as it airs. This is not the indispensable comedy of our time and it's not even terribly shocking.

And the first season suffers because it does not build to anything real. Unless the series finally ends with the punchline, "That wasn't the story of how you met mom, that's how Uncle Barney and Aunt Robin got together!" these twenty-two episodes do not take the viewer anywhere particularly new in terms of humor. And even if that does become the eventual series finale's joke, I'm fairly sure it won't be worth it. Either way, this boxed set isn't.

For other works with Cobie Smulders, check out my reviews of:
The Avengers
Captain America: The First Avenger
The L Word - Season Two

5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sighs Of The Viewers For Farce Of The Penguins

The Good: Moments of humor
The Bad: Humor is repetitive, Juvenile, Concept gets old very quickly, DVD Extras are more of same.
The Basics: Yeah, I laughed once or twice. But that's about all one might expect from Farce Of The Penguins.


A few years back, I went to the theaters to see the documentary The March Of The Penguins (reviewed here!) because it was supposed to be an astonishingly good documentary. I remember enjoying it, even if it was basically a PBS NOVA special on the big screen. When I heard that Bob Saget was doing a spoof of the film, I was mildly interested. I think I was more surprised when I found Farce Of The Penguins on DVD as I don't recall it actually coming to the theaters.

The story is simple: Samuel L. Jackson provides voice-over for the story of penguins traveling the seventy miles from food to their mates and their women then making the trek back and forth as well. Instead of telling anything remotely scholarly, Farce Of The Penguins becomes a buddy comedy between Carl and Jimmy, who are best friends. They wander back to their "bitches" (the movie's term, not mine) where they both score with the same penguin.

This is the type of movie that Farce Of The Penguins is. Various actors provide a line or two for various penguins and the film has an "assembled" quality to it that is less cohesive as it is filled with catch-phrases. The humor is pretty juvenile and banal, ranging from genital-size and fart jokes to breaking the fourth wall with penguins talking to the narrator. The average bit includes Gilbert Gottfried providing the line "I'm freezing my nuts off!" to the image of a shaking penguin and Norm MacDonald asking about joining in to a clip of a lone penguin walking around where two groups of penguins are mating. Yes, it's that outrageous and funny a movie.

The truth is, I did laugh once or twice during Farce Of The Penguins, but most of it was at the beginning when the idea of the movie was still fresh and almost all of the lines that I laughed at were delivered by Samuel L. Jackson. So much of the humor seemed forced, though, because the clips barely match a concept of what might be talked about by the penguins. So, for example, most of the women are relegated to generic jokes about parties, sanitary napkins and the club scene because the female penguins shown in the beginning are not truly doing anything.

This is like Mystery Science Theater 3000, save that the people participating have nothing terribly funny to say about the content. Most of the voice-over performers literally come in for one line (they are credited more by the lines they deliver than by character names because most of them don't even have character names). For example, John Stamos's cameo is as "What's Global Warming Penguin," can you guess what his line is?

I am surprised Farce Of The Penguins was given an "R" rating, though. Most of the content is sexually themed (but it's penguins and other animals having sex) and language elements; there is a fair amount of swearing and talk that sounds more like a lockerroom than anything else. The thing is, none of it is terribly clever . . . or genuinely funny. Instead, it just seems like a bunch of comedians walking in on a movie, making a comment and leaving. The few actors who provide voice-overs throughout (Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Saget, and Lewis Black) wear out their welcome because they basically start with a schtick and they get mired in it for the hour and a half that is this movie.

The bonus features on the DVD are equally uninspired. Bob Sagat provides a commentary track that explains why he bothered to make a parody of March Of The Penguins. Otherwise, there are previews for equally uninspired cinematic outings from Lionsgate and five deleted/extended scenes. The deleted scenes add nothing substantive to the film.

I enjoy documentaries and I loved the mocumentary Best In Show (reviewed here!). What that film had that Farce Of The Penguins lacked was a sense of timing and levels to it that it worked on. It told a story, mocked dog shows and Fred Willard provided a completely different experience as the crazy announced. Farce Of The Penguins just makes jokes over the stock footage of penguins doing their thing.

It is interesting to note that this spoof might have more relevance to those outside the United States of America. In other countries, in March Of The Penguins, the penguins were given personalities and lines, in the U.S. only Morgan Freeman had a voice.

But, ultimately, this is not a funny movie. Or the humor in it is repeated so often as to become droll and insipid.

For other animated films, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Bolt
The Lord Of The Rings
Perfect Blue

2/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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