How I Met Your Series Finale

So, How I Met Your Mother ended on Monday evening, after 9 seasons.  Most of which were pretty darn good (the last one excluded). It all built up towards this finale...as the main character, Ted still had never actually "met" the 'Mother' (even though we had been introduced to her character this season).

It was.... Disappointing.

I'm not going off the deep end, and I'm not ranting and raving or upset about it.  After all, it's just a TV show.  And a pretty superficial and silly one at that.

I can kind of understand the reasoning behind the ending (Spoiler Alert...skip the Next paragraph in italics if you don't wants to know.)
In the final episode...Barney and Robin marry, Ted and the Mother meet, Barney and Robin get divorced, the Mother and Ted have 2 children but don't get married for several years (weird?), and the Mother dies...and the show ends with Ted's children imploring to go after their Aunt Robin.

According to sources, show creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, shot the final scene with the children during season 2.  So they have known for a LONG, LONG, time how they planned to end the show.  And, on some level... I understand it.  The show was continually...year after year...

OK, IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE SHOW YET...THE REST OF THIS POST IS A SPOILER...SO GO WATCH IT...IT'S STREAMING ON CBS.COM RIGHT NOW

The show was continually about Ted being in love with Robin.  He was in love with Robin from the first episode.  He was in love with Robin when they were dating.  He was in love with Robin when she was dating other people.  In fact, one of Ted's ex's (Victoria) flat out told him that he needed to get rid of Robin if he was going to move on.  She was right.  Over the years he was with The Mother, Robin was never around, and was traveling the world...she wasn't there.

So I get it.

And the show... WAS... Technically, called... How I MET Your Mother.  He was telling the kids how he met their Mother, and we learned she had been gone for six years already.

HOWEVER... I didn't like it.  I understand it, but I don't like it.

1.  You just spent an ENTIRE season...ridiculously, spread out over three days.  And then in the last episode, you jump forward,.. year after year roll by within minutes.
2. As mentioned, this ENTIRE season has been spent on Barney and Robin's wedding and marriage, and they were literally divorced in 10 minutes.  What a waste of a season.
3. Ted and Robin?  Really?  He let her go.  Seriously.  And actually.  In This Very Nightmare of a Season...he stood and let a metaphorical balloon of Robin go.  He let her go.  He went out of his way to help Barney marry her.
   If You Knew Ted Was Going To End Up With Robin, You Do Not Film That Scene!
4.  The Mother - We spend 8 years waiting to see a glimpse of her.  Over the course of a season, she is gradually introduced to the gang (meeting all the characters, except for Ted) and we learn that she's just like Ted...and they are a perfect match.  In fact, when he breaks the "3 days rule" to call her the day after the wedding...Lilly said "This time is different".  It was different.  And so, with this incredible character that was built up over 9 seasons, about how perfect and funny and adorable she was and we finally get to meet her...and you kill her off in a half hour?
5.  This is the equivalent of a young boy searching for a long lost pet...finally finding him, and then having him die.  You don't do that.
6. Why couldn't we have spent a little more time with the Mother?  Every single person I know who watched the show actually liked the character, and the actress who played her.
7.  Why spread the entire season out over a weekend...and then throw together that rush of a mess of a Finale.

I know that Series Finale's... especially comedy finales, are hard to do.

The Friends finale was good, but c'mon...anything that series did that ended with Ross and Rachel together would have been good.  Monica and Chandler could have died in a helicopter crash that fell on Joey and Phoebe, if Ross and Rachel would have gotten back together at the funeral, it would have been fine.

Cheers had a great final episode...but at the time, it was universally panned.

The Seinfeld finale is still hailed as a terrible episode..but was it?  Really?  I mean I catch it on re-runs every now and then...and there's alot of funny stuff in there.  I just think people didn't like the idea of them going to jail.  If they would have gotten off, and gotten to celebrate how they didn't care about other people...it would have been liked better.

MASH had a great finale.  But that wasn't a typical sitcom.  Scrubs had a great finale (for the original scrubs...not the rebooted Med School Scrubs that they tried).

Probably my favorite of any series finale was HBO's "Six Feet Under".  Which was simply phenomenal.

Anyway, I won't care too much about the HIMYM finale, because I legitimately enjoyed the show for 8 years.  (Just not this past year).

America's Game

I can't remember how old I was.


I know for certain I was in 5th, 6th or 7th grade.  Because we moved to that farmhouse the week of Christmas of 4th grade, and moved away the summer before 8th grade.  So I must have been 10-12 years old when I first watched the Army/Navy Football Game.


I remember the living room, the television, the long old couch that my parents kept forever (seriously, they had this couch for my entire life, and then I think they gave it to my brother).  I was doing what I usually did on a Saturday afternoon in the cold, looked for a game to watch on TV.


This was before cable, and we had a grand total of 4 channels, if you include PBS.  My favorite pastime in the winter months was checking out the stations and seeing if there was a game of some sort on.  I watched tons of college basketball, football, shoot I'd even watch Billiards if it was on (Minnesota Fats vs Willie Mosconi).  Anyway this one fine day, I come across the national anthem for a football game, I was excited.  This was my first Army/Navy game.


It was amazing.  I was enthralled, entranced, and immediately hooked.  I could tell the players on these teams were a little smaller than what I saw out of Notre Dame/Ohio State/Nebraska on a normal Saturday.  But there was just something about the way they played the game... passionate and intense but also.... Regal?  Not sure if that's the right word, but the way the players treated each other on the field was noticeable.


I remember watching the game several times over the years, and although I missed some (I'm not going to lie and say I've seen them all since then) whenever I saw it was on, I always watched it.


Many years later, I read John Feinstein's excellent book "A Civil War".  Feinstein spends a year inside each of the programs, follows them through their ups and downs and finishes with the magnificent event of the 1995 game.  


Since reading that book, I haven't missed one.  Navy has been on a bit of a roll of late (winners of the last 6, and a tie the year before that), but I cheer for Army.  Always have and always will.  


This Saturday's game will be the 112th annual game.  It's a tradition that goes back.  It's a game played mostly by young men, who will never play another game (at least for the seniors).  It's a game played by young men who are the best and brightest this country has to offer.  It's a game where no matter who wins or loses, everyone of the field is a winner.  I know that sounds cheesy, but it's actually true in this case.


So, if you've never seen... or it's been a while... do yourself a favor and tune into CBS this Saturday afternoon.  You'll be glad you did.