HIMYM: OMFG Shocker!

I will leave my overall analysis of the series thus far for a later post, just know that this: How I Met Your Mother (henceforth referred to as HIMYM) has been one of my favorite television shows since it's premier in 2005.  It was a more modern take on my all-time-favorite television show Friends.  Plus, who can resist Neil Patrick Harris' over the top comedic acting?  However, I have sadly been wondering this season what has happened to the show I loved? The everyday humor that we can all relate to isn't there any more, instead we're left with : "Really? In what universe would that ever happen?"  I no longer make sure my Monday nights are free, and instead am perfectly fine picking up the most recent episode a few days later online, thus my delayed response to the most recent HIMYM shocker.

Any who, fast-forward to the latest episode, "The Rebound Girl."  The humor I'd been missing was back!  This was definitely one of the best episodes thus far this season, and with the major let down of the "Slutty Pumpkin" story line, some good old fashioned HIMYM humor was much needed.  Loved the "shrinking apartment" twist to why Lilly and Marshall needed to move to suburbia: classic HIMYM humor. 

Bro-parents...really?  While the humor was there, I have mixed feelings on the story line. Ted and Barney do hang out with each other enough that seeing them "in a relationship" was quite humorous, and an unexpected twist to the story.  If "narrator Ted" didn't constantly remind the audience "we were out of our minds" I would have put it right into the "unbelievable humor" category that recent episodes have been drowning in.  It's definitely a Ted thing to do, but the Barney we've come to love seems to becoming more and more domesticated (remind you of lady's man Joey from Friends at all?).  The writers were able to still bring into play the Barney we know, with Ted realizing Barney probably isn't the best parent for children, so hopefully all is not lost yet.

Biggest shocker of the episode? Robin's pregnant!  Um...what?!  With everyone now being pregnant how much longer can the show really go on as a young-adult comedy? It seems to be quickly moving towards a family comedy and that's not what I signed onto when I first got hooked to the show. Baby and pregnancy humor only goes so far.  Remember when Rachel got pregnant on Friends?

While the episode brought back a lot of what the show had recently been missing, it left me feeling nervous about where the show is going to go.  Too bad next week is the first repeat of the season...just when I was beginning to get hooked again!

Best Line of the Episode: "Being gay would be kick ass." -- Neil Patrick Harris as Barney

Unexpected Marathon: The Vampire Diaries

This past weekend I was browsing the "watch instantly" section on Netflix and came across the entire first and second seasons of The Vampire Dairies.  As the first television show I'm writing about, I should point out that this is not the type of television I normally watch.  Since I've been out of high school, I've moved past the high school-angst-type of television (which is how it should be) and I'm more into shows such as How I Met Your Mother.  In addition, previews of the show always reminded me of Twilight, and in fear of alienating everyone in only my second blog post, no, I'm not a fan.

Nonetheless, I've always liked vampire television, such as Buffy and Trueblood, as well as dark television shows in general, like Supernatural, so I figured I'd at least check out the pilot, and before I knew it I had made it through the first two seasons and started hunting down the third, and current season, elsewhere on the internet.  

Downsides:

• Just like on nearly every show on The CW currently, the entire cast (including the extras) looks like they came out of a spread in Vogue. But it's a show about vampires, so who needs it to be realistic?  
• For being about high school students, they sure spend little to no time in school  or studying and as the seasons went on their time in school just kept decreasing.  Yes, vampire drama is intriguing, but throwing in a story line about real life (minus whose hooking up with who) would be a nice addition every once in a while.
• Way too many similarities to Supernatural. While I like the brother chemistry, it sometimes it feels like the good-brother, bad-brother bantering was taken straight out of a Supernatural script.  It's also another show where the entire cast is expendable, minus the brothers and Elena of course.  And while I was glad to see some characters go, others should have stayed around, or at least not been killed off.
• It took only two seasons for the entire cast to find out about vampires and for the core cast to have some kind of supernatural ability, be it a ring that gives it to them or that they are the key to creating a hybrid species.

Upsides:

• Two seasons equaling one school year gave a lot of time for the story to progress at a more natural pace.  One episode could be one or two days worth of television time, allowing for plots to develop at a more natural pace.  This also made watching the first two seasons' episodes back-to-back nice because it was like watching a really really long movie, with one episode picking up hours, if not minutes, after the previous episode ended.
• Never read the books, but from what I've gathered about the books they are VERY different from the television show, and that's a good thing. 
• The entire cast looks like they came out of a spread in Vogue.  Who said a negative couldn't also be a positive?
• I love witty banter, and outside of the USA Network, its hard to find good television that's got it.  The entire cast doesn't pull it off (even though sometimes they are made to try), but the show is worth watching just for Damon's snide remarks and brilliant facial expressions.  I just hope he doesn't loose it in his new "bad boy gone good" role he's been playing.  

It's Like: A mixture of Supernatural, Roswell, Gilmore Girls (small town aspect) and Twilight.

Best Season 1 Episode: "Lost Girls"

Best Season 2 Episode: 

Overall, with Supernatural being kind of "blah" for me right now, The Vampire Diaries may just be the best show on The CW currently.  It's definitely one I will be adding to my watch list, for at least the time being.