RIP, How I Met Your Mother

An end is come; the end is come.

Few series finales have been as eagerly awaited as the one for How I Met Your Mother.  I mean that in both senses of “eagerly awaited,” in that fans of the show have been waiting for the answer to the title question for nine years, and that after the past few years a lot of people just want it to be OVER.

When How I Met Your Mother (hereafter HIMYM) began, it seemed like a concept with a short shelf life.  How long could they maintain the framing device that this was an old guy telling his teenaged kids the long and rambling story about how their parents met?  And there were many, many times when the framing device strained credulity.  Would a father really tell his kids about all the women their “Uncle Barney” slept with?  There were many times when I wanted the son to interrupt and say, “Wait a minute, dad! You mean you nailed Aunt Robin?  Cool!” 

But the show was helped by the fact that the creators were self-aware about the artificiality of the concept.  A year or so ago they even produce a short clip for the internet where the kids rebel and start yelling about how long the story is taking and how they’ve been living off water trapped in cobwebs under the couch.  It was also helped by the fact that the show’s dedication to continuity made the claim that the producers had an end game planned more credible than, say, the claim of Lost’s producers that they knew how that show would end.

If fans of the show have been frustrated that recent seasons were somewhat lower in quality, they should take solace in the fact that HIMYM was always trying.  Few sitcoms have attempted to push the envelope of the form than HIMYM.  When you are constantly trying to be innovative, it is going to get harder and harder, and after 8 years it will be nearly impossible.  Fans want their shows to take risks, but they don’t want them to fail. 

What always was consistent was the quality of the cast.  If you had asked me at the beginning of the show’s run to rank the cast in order of breakout potential, I would have ranked Jason Segel dead last.  But he has starred and co-wrote what I think is the best comedy of the past few years (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), co-wrote and starred in the movie return of the Muppets, and been in several other solid but unspectacular comedies like I Love You, Man and Jeff, Who Lives at Home.  Cobie Smulders has invaded the Marvel film universe in The Avengers.  Neil Patrick Harris now hosts almost every entertainment industry award show.  Allyson Hannigan hasn’t done much outside of HIMYM, but coming off of a much-loved 7 year stint on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer she can afford to be selective.  Josh Radnor has written and directed a couple of small indie films.

And, in a very pleasant surprise, season nine cast addition Cristin Miloti as The Mother has fit right into the ensemble.  There was some grumbling at one comment board about her being made to be just like Ted (mispronouncing “Renaissance,” wearing driving gloves) but how else can a TV show short hand that two characters will have a good relationship?  At least they have things in common, unlike some TV couples (see the previous post on Grimm).  Even more, she seems to imbue the character with special qualities that make Ted’s journey to find her worth the wait.

HIMYM probably contributed more to the modern lexicon that any TV since Seinfeld.  The show created The Bro Code, the Slap Bet, the Slutty Pumpkin, Haaaave you met . . ., the Devil’s Tricycle, Legend . . . wait for it . . dary, and Suit Up! 

The show made some typical sitcom mistakes.  It massively overused Neil Patrick Harris after he struck a collective nerve thanks to his talent and the fact that Harris was an openly gay man playing a womanizer.  HIMYM seemed to be playing the Friends hook up game, pairing up regular cast member just because they were there.  Of course this was more limited than it was on Friends due to the fact that HIMYM had only five regular cast members instead of the six on Friends, and that Marshall and Lily were unavailable to hook up with the others (although Lily’s vague sexual attraction to Robin was my favorite of the show’s many running jokes).    Robin marrying Barney after being with Ted, and then watching Barney trawl through most of the under-25 female population of New York City for eight years, does seem unlikely, but neither one was looking for a permanent relationship which gives them something in common.

So au revoir, How I Met Your Mother.  You never got the Emmy love of other sitcoms (although the show has won an impressive number of Emmies in tech categories like editing and art direction), but you took more risks, and had a higher batting average when taking risks, than any show in this century.  By the way, a quick note to CBS: I will NOT be watching How I Met Your Dad.

Grimm and Bear It

You know what’s no fun?  Criticizing people who fail.  Everybody knows why the reboot of Ironside was cancelled 10 minutes into the first episode, or why the cast of We Are Men were going out on casting calls before the ink was dry on their contracts.  What is find is pointing out the failings of people who have succeeded.

One of (I think) the most surprising success stories on television is the continued survival of a little TV show called Grimm.  It debuted with relatively little fanfare, was relegated to Friday nights (when every TV executive knows everyone is out on a date and not watching TV), and was in a genre that TV has gotten wrong more than right, horror.  Yet here it is, wrapping up season 3 and already renewed for season 4.

I’ve stayed with Grimm throughout its run, but it’s been tough, especially at the beginning.  It’s not a great sign when the break-out actor from the show is the secondary sidekick (Monroe, played by Silas Weir Mitchell) and the main character is dull as dishwater.  Frankly, after three seasons, I can barely remember Nick’s last name.  In fact, almost all of the characters were underwritten, and the show got by on the creativity of its writing, weaving ancient fairy tales into horror stories for the new millennium.

The main characters of Detective Nick Burkhardt and his girlfriend (fiancée?) Juliette Silverton (her name I DID have to look up) are particularly uninspiring.  The recent plot line where Juliette developed amnesia about Nick bore this out—when asked what she could remember about him, she could only recall meeting a police officer who was cute.  This couple falls into the old Hollywood trope that if he’s a handsome man and she’s a good looking woman, then they must be in love. 

Seriously, what do these two have in common?  He’s a cop, she’s a vet.  Do they share any hobbies?  Go to the same church?  Go to the Northwestern version of Comic-Con dressed as a Storm Trooper and Princess Leila?  They never have any conversations other than about Grimm related activity, and neither seems that interested in the other’s work.  But I think these crazy kids are going to make it!

Grimm’s obvious progenitor is Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which co-creator David Greenawalt worked on.  What made Buffy memorable and compelling were not the monsters, most of which were awesome, or the acting, which was great.  The reason Buffy achieved iconic status among its fans (and that includes me) is that we cared about Buffy Summers.  We didn't just want her not to be killed by the monster; we wanted her to be happy.  To have a nice boyfriend.  To see her friends be happy with her.  If Buffy Summers had just been a one-dimensional demon fightin’ machine, the show would not be remembered today and Joss Whedon would be writing jokes for Two Broke Girls (no, that’s not right; he’s a genius who would have found another vehicle for taking over the universe).

Bottom line: I don’t care about Nick Burkhardt. 

To its credit, the show has gotten better.  The mythology involving “The Royals” has been enjoyably fleshed out, and there is a couple on the show with chemistry now that Monroe is engaged to Rosealee (is it wrong of me to find her more attractive when she’s in her Wesen form?).  The highlight of season 3 has been obvious yet still relevant metaphor of the racial overtones of their relationship.  You see, they’re both Wesen, but they are different kinds of Wesen and his family objects to a mixed marriage.

The other significant development in season 3 has been the debate over whether to let affable Sgt. Wu (whose first name was recently revealed to be Drew; really?) into the secret world of Wesen fighting.  That’s another thing Buffy did well, handle the fact that the main character is constantly doing something secret and incredible, but no one finds out.  Wu is the only cast regular not in on the Wesen secret identity thing, so I suppose someone has to be the outsider.

I wish Grimm well, but I wish it would make Nick someone I cared about.  He must have a personality other than “cop by day/Grimm by night.”  At this point I’d favor spinning Monroe and Rosalee off to their own sitcom, sort of a modern day Bridget Loves Bernie.  For you youngsters out there, that was a shocking TV series about a Catholic girl who married someone who was Jewish!

As the ads say, we've come along way, baby.  Oh wait, that's from before your time as well.

A Modest March Madness Proposal

Every year at this time I go nuts.  It’s March Madness, almost literally.  I’m not talking about seedings, snubs, or 2/15 upset possibilities.  I’m talking about simple geography.

Presumably the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, must be populated by individuals who, you know, went to college.  And presumably a few of those people didn’t go on an athletic scholarship, and therefore actually learned something.  Yet every March the complete ignorance the NCAA selection committee has of United State geography is revealed to be staggering.

Who is in the “West” bracket?  The University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  Because when I think of the western United States, I immediately picture bayous and gators.  What school isn't in the West?  UCLA, which is in the South region.  Because being 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean doesn't mean you are in the West.  Cal Poly also isn't in the West bracket but in the Midwest, because apparently someone thinks that California is located between Indiana and Iowa.

Colorado and Pittsburgh meet in the first round in the South bracket, because both of those places were in the Confederacy during the Civil War.  Albany is also in the South, but not North Carolina State, which is in the Midwest.  Ohio State is not in the Midwest region, but in the South.  Iowa State is in the East, while Manhattan is in the Midwest (because when you think of Manhattan you think of tall buildings, Broadway, and fields of wheat).  Duke is in the Midwest, Milwaukee in the East and so on ad nauseum.

Look, if the regional brackets don’t mean anything, why give them geographical place names?  If teams from California play in the South bracket, why call it the South?  If a team from New York City is in your bracket, it shouldn't be called the Midwest.  Let’s come up with an alternative.

Here is my proposal: instead of naming the brackets after geographical regions, name them after historical figures from college basketball.  You could still maintain some semblance of regionalism, but make it a little more non-specific.  Then the stupidity of saying Duke is in the Midwest isn't quite as glaring.

My suggestion?  The West bracket could be known as the Wooden bracket.  The Midwest bracket should be renamed the Knight bracket.  The South could be transformed into the Smith bracket (if naming it after Dean Smith is too generic, you could always call it the Rupp bracket).  And lastly, the East could be called the Summitt bracket (okay, Tennessee isn't exactly the East, but there isn't a retired basketball coach with her pedigree from a school in the “East.”

Can we please stop destroying the map of the United States every March?  Let’s honor NCAA basketball history and get rid of the geographical brackets that clearly mean nothing.  Now let me get back to my bracket; I can’t decide if North Dakota State is likely to upset Oklahoma in the West.

Pete Rose is back?

There are some people you just wish would go away.  Most of the Kardashians.  At least half of the GOP Presidential candidates from 2012.  Britney Spears.  I don’t understand it; people with talent have a difficult time hitting it big; Spears has no talent what so ever, yet she manages comeback after comeback until you can barely remember those blessed times when she was gone.

In sports, my nominee for Most Annoying Banquo’s Ghost is back on the cover of Sports Illustrated: Pete Rose.  Nearly a quarter of a century after his case was definitively adjudicated, the debate rages over whether he should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  The reason he is not in the Hall of Fame is because of a piece of paper agreeing to a lifetime ban, and that paper is signed by Pete Rose.  Case closed.

But the apologists continue.  Betting on baseball isn't as bad as using steroids.  There really was no evidence he bet on baseball, and even if he did there is no evidence it influenced the outcome of any games.  He’s the all-time hit leader, and how can the guy with the most base hits NOT be in the Hall of Fame (and what about the guy who hit the most home runs?  What are the odds Barry Bonds will be voted into the Hall once he’s eligible?).

The bottom line is this: Pete Rose agreed to a lifetime ban.  If Pete Rose accepted a lifetime ban, the rest of us should as well.  Gambling has been the cardinal (sorry St. Louis) sin of baseball players since the Black Sox scandal.  Gamblers always lose (do you think those big shiny buildings in Las Vegas were built in order to give money away?) and once losses pile up, the risk of influence exists whether it is exerted or not.  Even if Rose never bet on his team to lose, it still could affect performance.  If Rose bet a lot on his team to win a certain game, he might leave a pitcher in longer than he should, making that pitcher unavailable for later games.  Gambling raises the possibility of influence, whether that influence is perceived or not.

As for the fact that Rose is the “all-time hit king,” the fact is that in the latter part of his career, Rose was the least productive first baseman in baseball.  He was a 40 year old spray hitter with no power, yet his manager kept putting him in the line-up.  His manager’s name?  Pete Rose!  In his final year he hit .219 with no home runs and an OPS of .538, yet she still wrote his own name in at first base 45 times.  In his 1986 Baseball Abstract, Bill James rated Rose the 10th best first baseman in the National League (out of 12) and summed him up with one word--"Who?"  He ended up with 67 more hits than Cobb, but he would have been finished at least three years earlier and with 266 fewer hits if he hadn't been his own manager.  So I don’t put too much weight on him getting to the top of that list.

Still, even discounting that achievement, doesn’t Rose deserve to be in the Hall of Fame?  One of the most prolific hitters of all time, key member of the Big Red Machine, one of the greatest teams ever, Charlie Hustle, ender of Ray Fosse’s career.  What does Pete Rose have to do to get into the Hall of Fame?  The answer is simple.

Die.

Pete Rose agreed to a lifetime ban.  Once his lifetime is over, he’s eligible again.  He’s 73 years old, so he’s on the clock.  While he’s alive, he is ineligible to feel the pride of getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame without a ticket.  When he can no longer derive any enjoyment form his inclusion, then he can get in.

Of course the same logic applies to Shoeless Joe Jackson.  His lifetime ban ended years ago; why no one has picked up the banner and advocated for his inclusion is beyond me.  At this point does he even have any living grandchildren who could derive some pleasure from his induction into the Hall of Fame?

So stop the lobbying to get Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame.  He’s not eligible, and the person responsible for that decision was Pete Rose.  The fact that he now has buyer’s remorse and thinks he should be allowed in just means he’s a liar as well as a gambler.  Let’s get Craig Biggio and Mike Piazza in next year and let the Death Watch on Pete Rose start later.

From TV Screen to Movie Theaters

Movies and television have usually been enemies, like the Capulets and Monagues, or the Hatfields and McCoys.  Movies were America’s biggest entertainment industry until the 1950s, when television entered people’s homes and offered them entertainment without having to leave their abodes.  Movies countered by providing formats that TV couldn’t replicate, like wider screens and bigger budgets.  But TV’s accessibility couldn’t be beat; people went from seeing a movie nearly every week to going a couple of times a year.

Eventually movies decided that if you can’t beat TV, you could replicate it.  I haven’t identified the first movie based on a television show, but at some point the generation of kids raised on TV became movie studio executives, and suddenly big budget movies based on TV shows became ubiquitous (Car 54 Where Are You?  Seriously?).  That tradition is getting a 21^st century twist with the upcoming release of Veronica Mars, a movie made possible in part by fans contributing to Kickstarter.

Filmmakers have taken a variety of approaches when converting a television show into a movie.  Some have appropriated the title of a familiar show then completely ignored the original material.  The greatest offender in this category is also one of the most successful film franchises, the Mission Impossible series.  The show featured a group of individuals working as a team under the direction of mastermind Jim Phelps; the first movie was about a lone agent played by Tom Cruise single-handedly attempting to clear himself of treason, only to discover that the real culprit was [SPOILER!] Jim Phelps.  The movies are entertaining, but bear only a superficial relationship to the concept of the TV show.

Another example of a big budget movie that more or less re-wrote the central premise of the series it was based on was Wild Wild West, which turned Secret Service agent Jim West into an ex-slave played by Will Smith.  The movie played as a comedy, which is odd because the original show was an action-adventure series with comedic overtones [interestingly, two TV movies with the original cast also treated the source material as comedy, replacing villain Miguelito Loveless (who was played by dwarf Michael Dunn) with his “son” played by Paul Williams, who was just short].

An ingenious way to get past the lesser quality television shows being converted into movies is the parody route.  This was used to make The Brady Bunch movie tolerable and considerably improved the recent reboot of 21 Jump Street.  The film parody of Dragnet gave Dan Ackroyd one of the best vehicles in his career.  

Another way is to be faithful to the original, but pump it full of bigger stars and better effects.  This was successfully done with The Untouchables, but the extra money did nothing to improve the quality of Lost in Space.

Rare is the TV-based movie that improves on the source material, beyond merely spending more money.  The Addams Family movies were well-cast (I thought Christina Ricci deserved a supporting actress nomination for the second one) and cleverly written.  The Fugitive condensed the multi-year story of Doctor Richard Kimble into an exciting two hour movie.  The J. J. Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise has provided an interesting new take on iconic characters (Spock and Uhuru as a couple makes so much sense).

Then there are the plethora of films based on TV shows that are just bad, the reason for the reboot being creative bankruptcy and not the desire to do an homage.  Why anyone would want to see Car 54 Where Are You on the big screen defies explanation.  Lorne Michael produced one good movie from a Saturday Night Live sketch, The Blues Brothers, but since has created an unending stream of drek like Superstar, It’s Pat and The Ladies Man.

It is uncommon for TV shows to make a literal transition to the big screen; by the time a TV show has come to the end of its run, it usually is creatively exhausted.  The X-Files tried the impossible and made a feature movie in the middle of the series, which was modestly successful (the feature film made after the series had ended was a major snore).  Star Trek successfully transitioned to movies after decades of fans clamoring for a return of the TV series; the transition of The Next Generation to movies was less successful.

Perhaps the most artistically successful movie based on a TV show was Serenity, based on the late lamented Joss Whedon vehicle Firefly.  Whedon did the impossible (which he seems to do on a regular basis), creating a film that was intelligible to those un-initiated to the Firefly series but a fulfilling sequel that rewarded fans of the show.  Financially the film opened at number two at the box office on the last week of September 2005, but was out of the twenty within a month; apparently all the Firefly fans went on opening weekend then didn’t go back.  However the movie was Whedon’s first work as a film director, which helped get him the gig as director of The Avengers.

Now comes Veronica Mars, the brilliant, low-rated series created by Rob Thomas that rocketed Kristen Bell to stardom.  In a survey of the past ten years of TV at Television Without Pity, fans voted the character Veronica Mars as “Best Badass” which is pretty impressive when you consider Bell is 5’1” and weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet.  Season one was a masterpiece, with each self-contained episode working as a tile that together formed an incredible mosaic.  Seasons two and three were less successful (has any show set in high school ever successfully transitioned to college?) but still worth watching.

Can Veronica Mars justify its fan’s faith and be a box office hit?  We’ll know after the weekend of March 24^th, when the movie goes into wide release.  As a huge fan of the show, I hope so.  The season 3 DVD contained a mini-episode that Rob Thomas did as a pitch for a fourth season, which fast forwarded Veronica out of college and showed her as a neophyte agent with the FBI, and it was so good that I can’t believe the networked passed on it (wait a minute, network executives doing something stupid?  Of course I can believe it).  Apparently in the new incarnation Veronica has turned her back on law enforcement and the movie portrays her as a New York attorney, but old boyfriend Logan gets her to come home to Neptune when he needs her sleuthing skills.

I will continue to believe that most movies based on TV shows are a bad idea (Bewitched?  Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me?).  But if the Veronica Mars movie is comparable in quality to Serenity, it might be proof that there are exceptions to the rule.