How I Met Your Mother
, which entered its fifth season last night on CBS, resembles
Friends
in its outlines. Both sitcoms follow a group of young men and women coming of age in New York City. But there’s also something similar in the experience of being a fan of the two shows—namely, a suspicion that it might be cooler
not
to be a fan. There’s no shame in admitting that you spent a night watching
Seinfeld
reruns—
Ooh, which ones?
goes the response. With
Friends
, a certain sheepishness attaches. What did you do last night?
Um, caught this great episode of
Friends
on TBS, where Ross and Rachel … Never mind.
Being a fan of
HIMYM
is a bit like that, and not without reason. While the show boasts one of the best characters on any current sitcom—Neil Patrick Harris’ rightly celebrated Barney Stinson—it also features one of the most frustrating: Josh Radnor’s Ted Mosby, whose painfully earnest pursuit of true love can bog down an otherwise rip-roaring episode full of ribald wordplay and
hysterical gags
. At its best, the show is funny and heartwarming; at its worst, plain sappy. To help fans decide whether to don their
MacLaren’s T-shirts
or keep their love undercover like Barney and Robin, Brow Beat is inaugurating a new feature, The
HIMYM
Shame Index. Each week, we’ll enumerate the latest episode’s great moments and its embarrassing ones and decide whether
Mother
has made us proud.
Shameful:
—Robin’s use of the tired phrase ”
slow your roll
.”
—The endless talk about “the talk.”
—The episode’s persistent use of Vampire Weekend’s “Oxford Comma”;
HIMYM
‘s creators seem to have a soft spot for indie rock, and while in the past they’ve been known to underscore a broken heart (Ted’s, natch) with an apt
Pavement track
, this felt like a reach for hipness.
—Ted’s lame dream sequence. Really, the forgot-to-wear-pants thing? You’re better than that,
HIMYM
.
Awesome:
—Marshall chiding Lily for not using her “indoor ‘woo!’ ” Adorable.
—Barney and Robin’s use of
flugelhorn
as a code word for when things have gone too far in bed or, later, in their fledgling relationship.
—Barney’s disdain for brunch.
—”T-Dog, you’re in the wrong room bro.” And just about the whole scene in the economics classroom—
HIMYM
is at its best when it’s playing Ted’s earnestness for laughs. His uncertainty about how to spell
professor
was particularly amusing.
—Marshall’s unilateral declaration of Tuxedo Night. “Didn’t we meet on a yacht?”
All in all, more to be proud about than ashamed of in this episode, plus some very good signs for the rest of the season: The Robin and Barney plotline shows promise, and Cobie Smulders and Alyson Hannigan are no longer hiding obvious pregnancies behind flouncy tops and preposterously large handbags.
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