It's hard, but I think it's time for How I Met Your Mother fans to accept that it's not Lost. While the show's creators do slip in clues to (or teases for) the identity of the Mother, they're usually in the form of really obvious deviations from sitcom format like "strange woman runs into Ted, who pauses to excuse himself before continuing the scene" or "what was that weird goat thing?". Last week, a sharp-eyed blogger at Seat 42F noticed that the same framed letter appeared in scenes from both 2030 and 2008, in Ted's future house and Stella's now-apartment, leading to speculation that Stella was the mother. It was a good catch, but in an interview with TV Squad today, HIMYM co-creator Carter Bays explained that it was nothing but a good old fashioned goof:
You know, I feel like I shouldn't respond one way or the other but it definitely - we were surprised to see it as well. It was a bit of a props snafu, I think. I'll just kinda say that.
Bays also talks about comparisons to Lost, the "medium cliffhanger" of Monday's season finale, and trying to avoid being "The Britney Show," which combined with common sense would lead us to believe that despite rumors, Alyson Hannigan calling Britney Spears "just a really really sweet girl" does not in any way mean that Britney is going to be a permanent star of the show.
Perusing this gallery of preview clips (so far) from the new fall TV season, only two shows jumped out at me as watchable. One of them is a heartwarming family reality game show produced by Ashton Kutcher, and the other seems like a straight-up ripoff of Meet The Parents. What the hell is going on here?
I got an IM from my friend Darci yesterday with some exciting where-were-they-then news about Melora Hardin, aka Steve Carell's on-again-off-again paramour Jan on The Office:
Darci: Melora Hardin from the Office was in a very famous episode of Quincy ME about punks. My friends and I are trying to bring back the term "QuincyPunk" which refers to punk posers. And that led me to finding the clip online and discovering that it was a young Melora Hardin!
And it's true! After the jump, clips from the episode and Melora Hardin in full fake punk getup. The clips are hilarious even without her. "I believe that the music I heard is a killer. It's a killer of hope. It's a killer of spirit."
Last night, How I Met Your Mother earned its Two And A Half Men lead-in timeslot (snap!) with what was indisputably the worst episode ever. Britney Spears made her second appearance as Crazy Abby, in an episode that, unlike her first, was clearly written around the guest star. Maybe because her character was less funny and more sad and delusional, or maybe because she had more lines, or maybe because the show's other subplots fell in line with the kind of cheap gay-stereotype jokes you'd expect to see on a CBS sitcom, just not this one, but this episode had fans yelling "Stop being the worst!" at their TV sets all across my apartment. Bad. Here are a few clips illustrating Britney's self-conscious, shrill performance. Poor Neil Patrick Harris.
The AV Club's Josh Modell saw the taping of David's Situation, the new pilot Mr. Show With Bob And David's David Cross and Bob Odenkirk are doing for HBO. Mr. Show fans have been waiting with bated breath to hear two things about this pilot, in order of importance:
1. That it's good.
2. That people who have never heard of Mr. Show might also think it's good.
Luckily, the news is cautiously fantastic on both fronts.
That's a joke! They would never do that to fans of the sitcom/mystery, or "sit-myst," but in this Hollywood Reporter interview with Mother co-creator Craig Thomas (which also includes clips of Britney on tonight's episode), he makes it clear that not only does Britney's character "tie up" loose plot ends from earlier in the series, but they've left things open for her to return next season. (Wow, no shit.)
It's great that Britney has helped save the show, and she is funny on it, but if I see her character with a yellow umbrella, I swear to God...
Do you ever see the same commercial over and over on different channels and get the feeling you're being targeted? (If the number of times I see the Cymbalta commercial is any indication, my TV habits are that of a severely depressed person, for example.) Last night while watching 30 Rock, I got a funny feeling that NBC has a very specific, surprising type of viewer in mind for the fast-paced hipster comedy. And it's your mom.
Despite this preview clip, which, disappointingly, doesn't seem to really have any Princess Bride references even though the "NBC finale" (the show is moving to ABC) of Scrubs tonight has been widely touted as an homage to the Best Movie Ever Made. It's just a short clip, though, set up by the episode's director and Scrubs star Zach Braff:
"Babies: a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips." is cute. Whatever, I'd watch CSPAN if they promised a Princess Bride themed episode. Who wants to bet something happens on Scrubs tonight that is "inconceivable!"?
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