Dear Bays and Thomas,
First off, I’d like to thank you for giving Neil Patrick Harris yet another opportunity to shine, by giving him a musical number in your 100th episode of How I Met Your Mother. It’s not like he doesn’t outshine every member of the cast on a weekly basis, but we all love to see him singing and dancing. Why it took you until the 100th episode to give the people what they want is beyond explanation, but thank you for finally getting to it. It’s a nice way to celebrate your milestone, that’s for sure!
The lyrics to “Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit” were truly inspired, dare I say brilliant. I loved the choreography of the number too, and I’m so glad you went big and brought in all the extras and had them dancing in the streets like a Lionel Ritchie music video. I smiled with enthusiasm through the entire number and wished for more.
Again I feel the need to thank you, this time for not having the other members of the cast too involved in that musical number, for I cringed for the brief scene they did have. You, like Joss Whedon, realized that as little Alyson Hannigan as possible in a musical number is a very good call. I love how you mention the musical theater chops of every other actor in the cast except poor Alyson in this interview.
Now, just one little complaint….
Throwing us the Rachel Bilson bone was nice, in a way, as we got a little forward movement on the “mother” story line. Plus, we like Rachel Bilson, so good casting call. However, there’s a little discrepancy you might want to clear up in the next few episodes, if you can. In the season four finale, “The Leap,” Ted mentions to the kids that their mother was in that class. We find out that it was the economics class, not his actual architecture class, but still.
Then, in this episode, it turns out to be the mother’s roommate in the class. Well, either you just did an “oops” or it’s really weird that Rachel Bilson’s character didn’t mention that her roommate was also in the class. Really, really weird, given the story line of this evening.
That’s just a small complaint, true, but it becomes bigger depending on the amount of importance you place on your series MacGuffin. Because if you’re going to tease us, at least do it with accuracy, so we can follow and enjoy the clues. That’s all.
Thanks again for a fun 100th episode and here’s to many more of the quality, funny kind, not the eye-rolling too much Lily and Marshall kind.
Sincerely,
Debbie, who loves Barney, loathes Lily and tolerates the boringness that is Ted
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Jan 11, 2010 @ 20:30 EST5EDT
Wow, worst article. Yes, the 100th episode was awesome because of NPH. And Alyson herself has said she prefers not to sing because she knows she’s not good. But if you only watch it for one person, then WHY watch it at all?
It’d spare us all.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Ted (via narration) confirm again in this episode that the mother was in the class? That she thought he was an idiot? It just so happens that Rachel Bilson was also in the class and also thought he was an idiot.
While I did LOVE the musical number, this was an episode with a musical number, not a musical episode as I felt was promised. It was no more musical than the Robin Sparkles episodes, I suppose with the exception that the one musical number followed a more traditional musical theater style of performance. Had they just promoted this as “NPH will finally sing” rather than “100th episode will be a musical” I’d have been totally satisfied, however, they built it up as more than it ended up being, and more than it really was ever intended to be.
Ok, rant over.
Kelley – they haven’t been billing it as a musical episode. The first couple of times it was mentioned, back when they started writing, it was implied that might be the case. But ever since then they’ve made it clear that the whole episode isn’t a musical. Even as long ago as August, in an IGN interview, they said “Our 100th episode is going to be this year, and we’re writing a big musical number for that.”
Just because the bloggers and internet in general seems to have assumed the whole episode would be musical, or are referring to it as “HIMYM’s musical episode”, doesn’t mean they lied to us.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure both the mother and Rachel Bilson’s character could have both been in that classroom without Rachel Bilson needing to directly mention it.
It seems perfectly logical to me that roommates would take the same classes from time to time. After all, they probably met at college in a class to begin with.
The only weird thing to me… OK, so the class was Economics 305–that’s an undergraduate-level class. So Bilson’s PHD student is taking that class and the mother too? How old are they supposed to be exactly?
well.. bilson did mention that she was quite jealous of her roommate so she did not want Ted to know who the roommate actually was. She cuda been in the class.
and why no word on Stacy Kiebler..?? :P
I don’t see it. I thought this was a huge letdown, what with the promised musical number from Barney, the anniversary, and the reveal about the mother. Really disappointing episode, though in step with a wildly disappointing season.
Accuracy is THE most important thing in a long-running TV show, especially in a show like HIMYM, that tells one never-ending but continuous story…
And also,the musical number was perfect :)
For me, that might very well have been the best episode ever. I agree that at some point this season got a little boring but fortunately, it is all over, Barney’s back!
The musical number is really wonderful. So booh to all those depressing people who thought this was disappointing, hurray to NPH!