Thursday, August 21, 2008

Current Obsession: How I Met Your Mother


I LOVE The Office. I LOVE 30 Rock. I LOVE Scrubs. And just when it seemed like my heart had no more room for television love, I was introduced to How I Met Your Mother.

I had heard of HIMYM, mainly due to all that buzz about Britney Spears making a guest appearance on the show. Yawn. Sorry, but even that didn't get me to see the show. But then, when fellow Life in Boxes editor Jen told me that I was missing out BIG TIME, I thought, eh, my favorite shows aren't going to be on for another month, so might as well see what all this hooplah is about.

Let's just say that it'll will blow your mind hole.

(Wait, did i over-hype it for you now? Damnit, I always seem to do that).

Anyway, for all those who have been [also] living under a rock, How I Met Your Mother is a situation comedy about 5 late 20's/early 30's friends living in New York City. Hm, sounds a bit familiar, a la Friends, no? Yeah .. but not really. First off, it airs on CBS, which besides CSI and a bunch of reality shows, never really saw the time of day on my television set.

But yeah, the show is basically narrated by future Ted (voiced by everyone's favorite family man, Bob Saget - cough), who is telling his children the [loooooong] story about how he met their mother. A pretty interesting technique in television, and even in season 3, it hasn't got old for me yet.

The show is centered around Ted (upcoming architect), his college bff [married] couple Marshall (lawyer-to-be) and Lily (kindergarten teacher), Barney (who we have yet to find out what he does), and Robin (news reporter). We see their bouts in and out of love, and dealing with life..transitioning from post-college young adults to adult life, in terms of careers and love. And of course, there's a bunch of sillies to it, mainly thanks to Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris).

You come to love the characters. And at some points, some of the characters may annoy you (currently, Lily is annoying the beejebus out of me, and I'm still not sure how I feel about Ted). But in some way or the other, you can sort of relate to the characters, who unlike the Friends characters, seem to be more believable and relate-able.

As for my favorite character? Hands-down, Marshall (played by Jason Segel) aka Marshmallow. I cannot wait to see how the slap bet ends.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

twas a good episdoe. I need to finish season three.. but where??

Jen Shin said...

sang, i'll lend you season 3 when i get it on DVD!

and julia, yeah, i like lily- she's so cute! not when she was breaking marshall's heart at the end of season 1 though, i wanted to slap her face.

howardcwang said...

JEN! You should have noted a spoiler alert!!! OMG I can't enjoy the show anymore. Thanks. =P

And the slap bet has so much potential!!!!! It must be my 2nd favorite thing about the show...

Anonymous said...

i love this show and jen, i like lily too! too bad season 3 is coming out like in october -_-

julia, did you see slap #2????

Anonymous said...

Another one of my favorites! Just finished S2 on DVD a couple weeks ago and can't wait to see how all the cliffhanger threads turn out in S3.

It's definitely comparable to Friends, but so much more. The unusual story-telling techniques are awesome, including the narration; the non-linear scripts; the same story/multiple POVs seem to double the potential for laughs given the same story idea.

Oh yeah, and then there's NPH as Barney. His character takes an already good sitcom to greatness.

There's also the subtle (or not so subtle) allusions/homages made to TV history that give me another level of enjoyment.

Also, I'd love to meet Kourtney Kang. I have no idea what she looks like, but I'd consider marrying her on the spot for all the work she's done on the show.

misc: I got to use the "Have you met Ted?" (finally!) line last week.