This Is Gonna Be Legendary, Wait for it... Dary

Recently I read an article calling How I Met Your Mother this decade’s Friends to which laughed at. Then I thought about it and realized the write was on to something, a show that had a solid first season that started going downhill when the characters started hooking up with each other. I usually trace the shark jumping moment to when the hot baker chick went off to France, but the show really started to lose its bearings in the second season when they spent the whole year focusing on the Ted/Robin coupling when we already knew that she was not the mother.

But that relationship thankfully ended at the end of last season, thus getting us back to Ted’s search for the mother mentioned in the title. We were teased early of the woman with the yellow umbrella(ella-ella-eh-eh-eh) that would end up being the mother. That umbrella even shows up at a bar later in the season, but it was almost as if the writers forgot all about it when they were too busy picketing.

Which makes the cliffhanger excruciatingly bad. You have either two scenarios; the writer completely dropped the umbrella thing (or will cheesily add it later) and Stella turned out to be the Mother (which adds another continually problem because if that makes her daughter the chick in the future, her brother would be much younger than her); or Future Ted just insanely not only spent way too much time telling his kids about his lengthy sex life with Aunt Robin, he also told them he proposed to some chick that isn’t their mother. Certainly Barney’s inevitable courtship of Robin next season will not be legendary.

Much less frustrating was the first season of The Big Bang Theory which transformed from a bland, and borderline insulting to those of us with triple digit IQ’s, to the funniest show on television. And of course educational, am assuming I am not the only one to go straight to Wikipedia after the finally to read up on Schrodinger's Cat. And there in lies the genius of Sheldon Cooper, and I am not even referring to his IQ.

Sheldon always had the right thing to say all season, even when his lack of a filter wouldn’t stop him when it wasn’t the right thing to say. The ying and yan with him and Penny may be the best duo on television as each is a worth foil for the other and I would be content if the show was just them. Think about the best moments from the first season and a large proportion involve the two together: Sheldon being sick, shopping for a birthday present, Penny the whole cat discussion. In fact it is hard to compile the best of the other character with only Raj’s failing to ask out Sheldon’s twin only coming to mind.

I am not sure who I feel about the season ending with the cat not being alive. I really do not see a Penny/Leonard coupling working out (see the above two examples of a show falling apart when the characters start hooking up). I am really hoping that the date is disastrous and the two decide to stay friends while Sheldon has to analyze why his theory didn’t work. But what I really hope for is no Britany Spears sightings.

How I Met Your Mother 3.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

The Big Bang Theory 1.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.