TV Was the How I Met Your Mother ending the worst TV series ending you've ever seen?

[Sora96 17,256]

Was the How I Met Your Mother ending the worst TV series ending you've ever seen?

[King Demise 2,359]

Well I am going to say it was something 

[Skhyatze 165]

I have never even knew that awful show was even popular.

[Queen Tery 4,591]

I thought it was pretty good. It seemed rushed and I can understand why it would bother people, but in context with what was actually going on in the show,

  SPOILERS: Click to reveal

it made sense and Ted deserved to move on and be happy after 6 years.

 

Edited April 14, 2014 by Queen Tery

[Aaron 579]

Yeah the actual story was okay. definitely not a fan but it could have been done okay if the episode had much better pacing. Like the pacing of the last season was what completely ruined it for me. First 10 epps about the wedding and the last 2 to sum it up?? Should be 2 about wedding and 10 to sum it up IMO. 

[Setrex 1,031]

My problem was obviously with the ending. It wasn't what I wanted out of it but nevermind. In truth though, the entire series was practically wasted by a wedding that in the finale turned out to be irrelevant, so... yeah.

[Queen Tery 4,591]

  On 4/14/2014 at 9:10 AM, KHSoraKeyBlade said:

My problem was obviously with the ending. It wasn't what I wanted out of it but nevermind. In truth though, the entire series was practically wasted by a wedding that in the finale turned out to be irrelevant, so... yeah.

 

Personally I don't see it as being irrelevant. Barney and Robin's marriage was a defining moment in Robin's life. Robin's job once again left her alone, pushing away another love in her life. The only love she saw as being worth a marriage. As time went on she grew more and more lonely and realized that Ted was the guy for her. Had she not lost Barney and seen what she was doing to her own life, I don't think she would've fallen back in love with Ted. Which then would've left Ted once again pining for Robin 6 years after the death of the mother. But that's my personal opinion on the matter, not trying to be rude or brush off anyone else's opinion.

[Setrex 1,031]

  On 4/14/2014 at 9:18 AM, Queen Tery said:

Personally I don't see it as being irrelevant. Barney and Robin's marriage was a defining moment in Robin's life. Robin's job once again left her alone, pushing away another love in her life. The only love she saw as being worth a marriage. As time went on she grew more and more lonely and realized that Ted was the guy for her. Had she not lost Barney and seen what she was doing to her own life, I don't think she would've fallen back in love with Ted. Which then would've left Ted once again pining for Robin 6 years after the death of the mother. But that's my personal opinion on the matter, not trying to be rude or brush off anyone else's opinion.

I guess it just felt so stupid to waste 22 episodes on a wedding when the marriage was over within 10mins of the finale. Killing the mother off wasn't something I was a fan of to be honest. I get why people liked the finale and how it turned out but for me personally, I don't think Ted should have ended up with Robin because I preferred Tracy as a character.

[Sora96 17,256]

  On 4/14/2014 at 10:44 AM, KHSoraKeyBlade said:

I guess it just felt so stupid to waste 22 episodes on a wedding when the marriage was over within 10mins of the finale. Killing the mother off wasn't something I was a fan of to be honest. I get why people liked the finale and how it turned out but for me personally, I don't think Ted should have ended up with Robin because I preferred Tracy as a character.

 

Exactly it's like: We'll cover this wedding in 22 episodes, next episode "We're getting a divorce", next episode, "That's how I met your mother, but she died six years ago now I'm going to go ask my best friend's ex wife out."

[Ajexmi 446]

it could have been a lot worse.... I think it didn't really tie-up marshal, lilly and barney's futures that well - more left them on the wayside to say 'this is how it was always meant to be; the show was always about this'. Thats my only criticism..... well that and killing the mother off so damn fast! haha

[Hero of Light XIV 2,381]

Definitely not. Life is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and sometimes everything can feel like it was for nothing and that it was meant to lead right back to square one all along. At least, I think it is, I haven't exactly experienced it yet. But yeah, I thought it was an OK ending. I mean, yeah, they probably should have focused on Tracy more, and yeah, they have really been pushing the Ted and Robin thing way too often lately, but whatever, I loved Barney's ending, it was perfect. Plus, Lilly was in a whale suit. SO CUTE!! X3

[Col.Random 3,683]

For me it was the last part that ruined it for me.A part of me actually saw this coming. TV shows usually try too hard to put some sort of surprise

[Jiraiya's Disciple 631]

It was bad...it was rushed and I hated it...who asks out there best friends ex-wife? WTF

[WakingDawn96 1,166]

Me and my sister liked it. But I have seen worst, aka cancelled shows that didn't know they were being cancelled and leaving the series with a huge cliffhanger

[Keyblade Master Xine 196]

I have a lot to say about this episode, but I want to start off by saying I think HIMYM is one of, if not the best, sitcom I've ever seen, and while I don't think the episode was bad, I don't see how people could think it was fantastic. I think the main problem of the episode comes from how misguided and, in my honest opinion, pretentious, the writers seem to be when deciding how end this series. By pretentious, I mean the fact these writers are great, and it's clear they wanted to do something unpredictable so that people can say, "Wow! I didn't see that coming! That was a brilliant ending to a great show! These writers are great because they were able to do something completely ungeneric and heartbreaking!", and I'm all for that, but they went about it the wrong way.

 

This is the same problem people had with The Dark Knight Rises, where the story they wanted to tell doesn't mesh well with what would naturally progress from the story they've already told, i.e. The movie taking place 8 years later so they can tell a story about how he stopped but has to come back out of retirement to face a new threat, just to quit again. This is not unlike what happens in HIMYM, where the entire focal point of the last season was Robin and Barney's wedding, and the show spent a good amount of time arguing the case for how much they do love each other, just to have them break up in the first 10-15 min in the episode? This wouldn't have been a problem if the wedding wasn't the main setting of the last season and the breakup took place earlier in the season, but as it stands, that made the entire wedding pointless, at least from a story standpoint.

 

As for Barney, having him regress back to his womanizing ways takes a dump on all of his character development. I know the show tried to explain this away by saying that if he couldn't make it work it out with Robin, he couldn't make it work with anyone, but we as an audience would like to think that if they were to breakup, that relationship would have taught him something, not do a Kingdom Hearts Level 1 reset. What's worse is having him have an illegitimate child with a woman we don't even see on screen or get a name, relegating her to a plot device to show how Barney learned the error of his ways, and while the scene of him holding his baby is fantastic and well acted by NPH, why couldn't that lesson be learned by his relationship with Robin? Why ruin a story arc just for one pointless, although great, character moment? This would have worked for story arc through the series, not for a series finale that's supposed to be a send off for the characters.

 

What they did with Robin was ridiculous to me. Why have her fall out from the group to focus on her career in a way that makes her slightly less likable? The show spent the entire series showing us their friendship and camaraderie just to have it end like that. This just feels like an excuse to put some drama in the show because the writers have some need to show that this isn't just some silly sitcom where shenanigans happen and every line out of the characters' mouths have to be forced jokes to add levity to situations that may or may not require comedy relief like those other pesky sitcoms. You just have to force in unnecessary and, quite frankly, unearned drama to "make us care about the characters", when it's hard to feel the emotion of the drama when we're just rolling our eyes at these writing decisions.

 

And now for the Big Kahuna, the main reason a lot of people hate the finale: what they did with Ted, Robin, and the Mother, or should I say Tracy. Where do I begin? Okay, with Ted and Robin. The show is called How I Met Your Mother, and the first episode is essentially how everyone met Robin, who would become the catalyst for a lot of Ted and Barney's story arcs. The show makes it clear in the first episode that Robin is not the Mother, and if that didn't do it for you, the brilliant episode Symphony of Illumination where we found out Robin can't get pregnant, which admittedly is bringing tears to my eyes just thinking about this episode while typing this, would put the nail in that theory coffin. We see the ups and downs of their roller coaster-like relationship as they go from friends, to BF/GF, back to friends, falling out, back to friends and them talking about their relationship, and the show makes a case that they truly aren't right for each other. Yet they still tried to drag on this Ted/Robin subplot in the last 2 seasons that don't mean anything because we know that they're not gonna end up together. On another note, both Cristin Milioti and the mother are funny, likable, and beautiful, and we see how Ted would fall in love with her, and the show did the clever thing of showing through flash forwards their chemistry instead of waiting till the last episode like any other TV show would do. The show even gives her a backstory where we see what's she's been doing throughout the show, cleverly framed through the moments we know she and Ted were at the same place, like the St. Patricks Day party and the time Ted taught the wrong class. The show went out of its way to make us fall in love with this character, only to have her die. What's worse is that we find out the framework for the entire series was Ted trying to ask his kids permission to ask Robin out 6 years after she died from Oneparentdramaitis, the same disease that killed Bambi's mother and Mufasa. We were all hoping Tracy was gonna be his happy ending, but the show sideswipes that, turning her from a character that we care about to a plot device and a loophole so that Ted will have kids to tell the story to since Robin can't get pregnant, so that we can have YET ANOTHER Ted/Robin moment. This Ted/Robin thing is something fans have been rolling their eyes about, only to have the show end on that is a slap in the face (no reference intended) to everyone who was invested in these characters. This is the main problem with the finale: this isn't natural progression; this is self indulgence. The finale is not a good payoff for the everything that was set up in the series. The way the story ended is not the proper ending for the story that was being told. The writers got too caught up in being surprising than telling this story to its natural and satisfactory conclusion. And even then, this episode wasn't that bad. I was expecting to be brought to tears by this episode, but I was just left feeling "meh".

Edited October 5, 2014 by Keyblade Master Xine

[Kaweebo 3,617]

I don't care about this show. I'm glad it's over so Cobie Smulders can have more time for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Kaweebo

[Sora96 17,256]

  On 4/14/2014 at 9:48 PM, Kaweebo said:

I don't care about this show. I'm glad it's over so Cobie Smulders can have more time for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

And yet she was probably crying after it ended.

[Queen Tery 4,591]

  On 4/14/2014 at 10:44 AM, KHSoraKeyBlade said:

I guess it just felt so stupid to waste 22 episodes on a wedding when the marriage was over within 10mins of the finale. Killing the mother off wasn't something I was a fan of to be honest. I get why people liked the finale and how it turned out but for me personally, I don't think Ted should have ended up with Robin because I preferred Tracy as a character.

And that is understandable. It was rushed. It had/has it's flaws. I just think that what actually happened wasn't bad, so much as HOW it was actually portrayed. If it hadn't have been rushed and maybe taken a few episodes to flesh out how the characters were feeling as opposed to the fans kind of having to make an inference based on the character, it probably would've been received a bit better.

[Sora96 17,256]

In case you guys didn't know, there was about 18 minutes of footage cut from the final episode or two. This includes a scene of Ted and Robin speaking (in 2018 I think) and the mother of Barney's child. Hopefully all this footage will be included in the Blu-ray and DVD releases of season nine. There is also an alternative ending confirmed to be coming in them. Hopefully all this content will bring a better ending to such a legendary show.

[twilight_roxas 326]

I never saw the final season.

[Setrex 1,031]

  On 4/15/2014 at 2:43 AM, Queen Tery said:

And that is understandable. It was rushed. It had/has it's flaws. I just think that what actually happened wasn't bad, so much as HOW it was actually portrayed. If it hadn't have been rushed and maybe taken a few episodes to flesh out how the characters were feeling as opposed to the fans kind of having to make an inference based on the character, it probably would've been received a bit better.

Oh most definitely. I think I would have appreciated the finale much more if they'd have given it more episodes to cover instead of trying to tie everything up in 2 episodes. Oh well, nevermind :l