How he finally met the mother (Season 9)

This was better than the Seinfeld finale, which is the bench mark for bad finales. It wasn't as good as the ones you listed by any measure. It fast forwarded through a lot of character wrapups that honestly should have been done over the course of the final season. A lot of the hate for that final episode really stems from the crap we had to watch leading up to it. You could have expanded the finale into three shows, 86ed a couple of really pointless episodes from the final season and it would have been better.

 

I enjoy schiezainc's boiling rage for the way this show disappointed because it mirrors my feelings toward LOST.

I still hate the ending. But I've learned to mostly forget the final train wreck. I would love to get Jason Segal drunk and ask him what he thinks since it seemed like he had to be begged into returning for one last season and they had to play all those lame tricks (he's stuck on a road trip away from the rest of the gang and may not make it!) to work him into half the season. I bet they shot all his scenes with Sherri Shepherd in like two days.

I still think if you pace the ending better it's 1000 times better. Give us a two-hour final, eliminate two of the terrible episodes at the Inn during the build-up, and have the reveal of the mom dying in hour one. Show Ted trying to move on. Show him running into Robin on the street somewhere. Hasn't seen her in years. Show there is some chemistry still there. They part ways and SHE lingers on him with a look for too long.

Then you use the same clips with the kids. Dad, what are you doing? Go get Aunt Robin!

As it was, you get:
1. Tracy is dead
2. Kids are like duh, don't die horny and alone
3. Blue French horn

All in literally three minutes of screen time.

LOST is unfixable, but give me Ted, Robin, the two kids to do voice overs, Saget, and three days of filming and I could fix HIMYM by raising it to the level of an acceptable bummer, not a complete betrayal of the entire premise.

 

Hell, the "alternate ending," which the show's creators obviously came up with in five minutes after seeing the backlash, was infinitely better than the ending they'd been building toward for nine years.

 

This quote came from me almost two years ago. I still feel this exact way right now, having not watched an actual episode of this show since the finale aired live:

 

And somewhere in there, show a little build-up to the end of the Barney-Robin relationship. They spent so long convincing us that they were going to make it, that they were perfect for each other, that Barney had changed to get Robin and they went through this whole wedding weekend farce of a season....just to tear it down in approximately 15 seconds.

Ted's wife dying...whatever. I liked her. I wish we had had more of her. But we spent 5+ seasons working our way up to Barney and Robin and they just dropped it 2 minutes after the I Dos.

 

I had slowly phased memories of this finale out of my memory. Now they're back and I'm suddenly filled with rage.

 

Ted defends the finale.

Josh Radnor Is Still Defending The 'How I Met Your Mother' Series Finale

 

He says there were some scenes cut for time that would have helped. You know what? Cut the rhyming episode, cut the Marshal learning to slap episode and make the finale two or three episodes. There problem solved.

 

I still think you make the finale the whole final season and they can make it work. I was intrigued by the thought of the whole final season being the wedding weekend just to see where they would go with it. Of all the terrible ways they handled the ending, invalidating that last season -- and to some extent much more than that with all the forced Barney and Robin crap -- in the first minutes of the finale was one of the worst.

 

I wish the episodes up to the winter break were the wedding. We can see Barney and Robin figure out who they are together and we see glimpses that it may not last, ie when they both concoct outrageous plans to steal Lily's cell and when Robin's mom shows up and points out how similar Barney is to her dad. The first half finale is the actual wedding. Then the second half, we see Barney and Robin having problems, Marshal and Lily are in Italy and Ted is wooing the mom. After two or three episodes, we see Barney and Robin's marriage fall apart and we start jumping in time to see Mom get sick. We end with Barney having the perfect month and having his daughter. Mom dies and Ted is devastated at her funeral and we finally see Ted wrap things up with his kids who tell him to go get Robin. She shows up with the blue horn, they stare at each other.

We get plenty of mom. We get closure with Barney and Robin (rather than the ha-ha, fooled you! we got). And we end where we have closure with mom.

I'm now going to my angry dome to vent.

 

Josh Radnor can tongue punch my fart box.
The finale sucked. He knows it sucked. We know it sucked.
Nothing will change that.
Period.

 

Also, apparently these two hacks have another show coming to CBS.
'How I Met Your Mother' Creators Back at CBS With Dating Comedy 'My Time/Your Time'

I don't care what this show's premise is. I don't care how it fares on TV. I don't care if it becomes the biggest show since Friends. I will NEVER watch it while it's on television. The only way I'll ever see it is AFTER the final episode airs and I get at least nine people who recommend it and say it's worth my time and it achieves at least an A- from the vast majority of TV critics.