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If there’s one thing that plays both for and against How I Met Your Mother, it’s the show’s inherent need for narrative direction. (Whilst the presence of an actual story makes it unique amongst other sitcoms, it also makes it unable to pull off more traditional one-off episodes.) Last season spent a great deal of its time stalling with fairly forgettable standalone episodes that did nothing for the progression of the plot. The result? The fifth season was probably the weakest one so far. What this comedy needs is a greater sense of direction, thankfully, the first two episodes of season 6 display much more of that than I’ve seen in a long while.
That’s not to say that How I Met Your Mother has cleared up all of its previous issues: it appears that the show has very little idea what to do with the character of Robin, and is content to make Marshall and Lilly’s quest for a child literally the only thing that’s going on in their lives. However, I suppose we shouldn’t forget that it’s primarily Ted’s story. There’s enough evidence in the premiere (‘Big Days’) at least, for us to hope that improvement is on the horizon for our protagonist.
The first episode of the season finally gives us a good idea about when we’ll be seeing “the mother” by telling us that Ted meets her at a wedding (one in which he is the best man, although we don’t know much more than that). This story-driven opening is exactly the type of approach the show needs to take and the premiere episode goes on to provide a good solid start to the sixth season. The plot of ‘Big Days’ focusses around Ted plucking up the courage to go and speak to a girl in McLaren’s, it allows for the return of Cindy (played by the always delightful Rachel Bilson) and a couple of surprises along the way. The second episode ('Cleaning'), however, isn’t quite as effective, although it does set up an interesting emotional arc for Barney this season.
The way I see it, Barney has been desperately in need of a good story ever since his failed relationship with Robin. To have him confront the fact that he doesn’t know who his father is looks like it’ll work and Neil Patrick Harris plays the softer side of Barney really well (he is a very good actor, but his character is often just a bit too sloppily written). Ted, also, really needed his behaviour to return to some sort of normalcy after a really odd turn of events last season that made him insufferable for the large majority of the time. I can only hope the writers come up with some good ideas for Marshall, Lilly and Robin as well, because they’re either boring or relegated to the sidelines for the first two episodes.
The sixth season of How I Met Your Mother is showing the signs that I had hoped it would at this point. The premiere episode is certainly a marked improvement even if the second offering was a little disappointing. Despite the fact that last season was less than ideal, I still love these characters and look forward to watching more of this story being told. It may not be perfect, but at least the season looks like it’s off to a good start.
How I Met Your Mother airs on Thursdays at 9.30pm on E4
In my view, the main problem with HIMYM is that it only has one funny character - the others are just generic sitcom cut-outs. Still watchable, though.
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