The How I Met Your Mother Blog

This is a weekly column where the episodes from seasons one, two, and three will go head to head in a humor cage match. This week, the episode one’s. It all starts here.

With this weeks’ repeat, I thought this would be a good time to go back and get caught up with the Season vs. Seasons.

Season 1: Pilot

When Ted’s best friend Marshall proposes to his girlfriend, Lily, Ted realizes he’d better get a move on if he hopes to find true love. Ted soon meets Robin in a neighborhood bar, immediately becomes smitten and scores a first date. But when Ted can hardly wait to see her again, his eagerness threatens to scare her away.

I have an affinity for this episode since it’s where it all began, it’s really hard to compare anything else because without this, there’d be no show. When viewed with the series as a whole however, it is arguably different in tone. All pilots suffer from this since we don’t know the characters yet. Marshall was a little more naive and kind of a lovable loser vs. the awesomeness man-child he is now. We met Robin, at the same time Ted was, and the blue French Horn was stolen. I think the episode has some great moments:

• Robin’s seduction of Ted in her apartment
• The Olive theory
• Lily’s eye-patch
• Ranjit!

Season 2: Where Were We?

The gang tries to help Marshall get over Lily, especially when he finds a credit card bill that leads to a hotel in New York City where some of her charges are listed.

This episode is important to me because of how eagerly I anticipated it. I so had looked forward to seeing Ted and Robin as a couple finally, and this didn’t disappoint. The image of Ted laying Robin across his drafting table made me wish I didn’t work at a computer (there’s no real estate here for that type of thing, and it’d end up turning out more like Gael when he wiped Robin’s laptop). I liked the scene with Ted and Robin in the shower too. Good Marshall moment. In fact, I love the hilarity of an off-the-tracks Marshall trying to find himself as an individual throughout the episode. The ending fell apart a little bit for me, but at least we saw George Clinton.

Season 3: Wait for It…

Robin shows up with a date and this motivates Ted to ‘get back out there’. We also learn/learned something major about ‘the Mother’.

Again, I was in eager anticipation for this episode. The premieres are always very emotional, we’ve been kept waiting for so long. This episode was great (we saw it again this past week, or so I’m told, I was hard-at-work Monday night). The Mandy Moore/Enrique Iglesias cameos were good, and not over-the-top. We saw bearded Ted, old-timey inventor Ted, Persian nightclub owner Ted, and tramp-stamp Ted. Overall, a good episode. It also had one of my favorite quotes: “that dark path is my driveway.”

Advantage

I have to give the nod to season one. It’s nostalgic, it’s innocent, it’s the show before it became the show it is today. What do you guys think?

Scorecard

Season 1: 1-0-0
Season 2: 0-1-0
Season 3: 0-1-0

Vote

{democracy:5}

Last night we saw a repeat of Bachelor Party from last season. I like this episode, although I prefer the B story (Robin’s inappropriate wedding shower present) to the A plot (Barney messing up Marshall’s bachelor party). That long description from Lily’s grandmother who thought Lily was about to open an antique sewing machine when in fact she was opening…something else was an inspired piece of writing.

Lastly, this episode was important because it showed us what made Lily finally come home. Barney flying out there with a ticket for her was a rare compassionate moment for him. He’s always shown a need for Marshall and Lily’s relationship to succeed (the ying to his bachelor yang it would seem) and it finally explained why Barney was so mean to Marshall during The Scorpion and the Toad.

Thoughts?

PS. Again, sorry for the limited posts. I’ve got a list of blog drafts a mile long and once I get situated you guys are in for some great content. Look forward to polls about returning guest stars, recaps from old episodes, legacy season vs. season talks, and maybe even a contest where we give away a DVD. Hang in there folks, it’s going to be a legendary new year.

Via DVD review:

On 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s release of ‘How I Met Your Mother: Season 2′ the studio has also included a hidden feature for you to discover.
Insert the first disc of the DVD set and from the Main Menu go to the ‘Special Features’ section. Now highlight the ‘On’ menu entry for the first Commentary Track and then press the ‘Left’ arrow key on your remote control. Now press the ‘Up’ arrow key and an icon will be highlighted on the screen. Now press the ‘Enter’ key and you will get to see a sketch of one of Hammond Druthers’ designs in the show.

I haven’t confirmed this yet, but it sounds awesome. Anyone have the DVD? Can you confirm?    Update: Reader RFRY (of milesdavisforpresident.net) sent in a screen shot. It’s the new hero image above. Pretty legendary.

“You’ve got to get me into that building. And don’t give me the shaft.”
“Yeah you did.”
“Had to.”

Be a pal, Digg this article.

So we got to see Arrivederci, Fiero last night, which is up there with Dowisetrepla in the “most difficult to spell of all How I Met Your Mother episodes” category. Normally I’d write up a full recap but since a) it was a repeat and b) I’m currently packing up my apartment before I move, I think I’ll just touch on a few points and open up the floor for everyone to discuss.

I like this episode. It was fun to see all the flashbacks centered around the car, and to see how both Ted and Marshall and Lily and Robin became best friends. Also, The Proclaimers. I have always liked that song.

What are your thoughts on the episode?

In related news, if you’re in the UK, season 2 of How I Met Your Mother is going to begin on Wednesday on “Trouble” (is that a network? Is that how channels are named there?). via Whedonesque.

Also, if you liked the capris Lily was wearing last week in The Yips, you can pick up a pair just like them.

This is a weekly column where the episodes from seasons one, two, and three will go head to head in a humor cage match. This week, the episode ten’s.

Season 1: The Pineapple Incident

After sucking down a quintet of shots at the bar, Ted blacks out. He wakes up the next morning with a sprained ankle, a burned jacket, a phone number written on his arm, a pineapple on his dresser, and an unknown woman face down in his bed. With the help of his friends, Ted attempts to piece together precisely what happened the night before.

This is in the top three best How I Met Your Mother episodes ever. This is the episode I show people if they’ve never seen the show. It was hilarious (Josh Radnor is excellent at playing drunk) and it had the awesome Danica McKellar as Trudy (who we saw again this season). The basis of the episode, that Ted over thinks and should take a night off from being so cerebral, get wasted and see what happens, was believable and executed with genius using what would become the signature flash-back style of the show. Told from the following morning Ted woke up with a girl in his bed, a pineapple in his bedroom, and a phone number on his arm. Turns out that anytime Marshall, Lily, or Barney put him to bed, Ted ended up back at the bar. From Cheap Trick Karaoke to using the women’s restroom, it was a rough night for Ted and a great episode for us.

My favorite line from this episode, if not the whole show: “How hard is it to sneak into the zoo? I need to see some penguins like right now.”

Season 2: Single Stamina

Barney’s gay black brother is in town, but he doesn’t want to tell Barney that he’s getting married because he’ll be losing his only single sidekick.

This was a fun episode. We got to see Wayne Brady catch-phrase and high-five alongside Barney. The ratio of humor/drama was balanced with Barney’s slow acceptance of marriage. I loved Marshall’s envy of girls getting to order fancy drinks and all the scenarios that Barney and James had for picking up guys and girls. It was one of the first flash-forwards also, showing Lily and Marshall married at James and his husband’s wedding a few years later. This scene, showing Ted and Robin dancing together, opened up the opportunity for the two of them to be together a long time (even though now we know that’s not true). Overall, a fun episode.

Season 3: The Yips

When Barney loses his way with women, he hopes a trip to the Victoria’s Secret Fall Fashion Show will help him regain his form.

I liked this episode. It was Barney-centric and hilarious. I agree that something about it felt a little “blah”, maybe because it didn’t really advance the overall plot so much. Read more on my thoughts from the recap earlier this week.

Advantage

The Pineapple Incident is the clear winner. It’s one of the season one episodes that still stands up. It is also the first episode, for many fans, that really sold them on the show. A rare decisive win for season one.

Scorecard

Vote

{democracy:14}

The photos above are of the female guest stars. I’ll put up episode stills later tonight or over the weekend.