One cynical reaction to Sony's reboot of Spiderman is that its simply to keep the rights in their hands.
Following the dreary disaster of Spiderman 3 that saw sufficient to dismiss Tobey Maguire from the red and blue suit, and Sam Raimi from the director's chair, there had been a thought that Marvel would reclaim the character for possible use in the Avengers series.
Instead, Sony opted to continue their contractual obligation to push out Spiderman movies by the boat load. Which means here we are with what, at first glance, seems to include one of the reasons Spiderman 3 was a bust.
One of the many failings of Spiderman 3 was an overload of villains, with the underwritten Sandman, unfocused New Goblin and underplayed Venom being Spidey's enemies, and neither of which matched the superb performance of Doctor Octopus from Spiderman 2.
Yet as well as following that lead, Sony seem ready to attempt to bleed characters for its own version of Marvel's Avengers universe. 3rd and 4th Amazing Spiderman movies, a Venom movie and a movie based on Spiderman villains club The Sinister Six are all greenlit.
At least you get that impression from the trailers and post adverts that this is going to be a big villain dogpile, with Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) and Rhino (Paul Giamatti) all mentioned.
The latter, however, is not involved at all save for cameos at the start and end, while the transformation from Harry Osborn to Green Goblin takes a long time.
The film begins with a flashback to the death of Spidey's parents (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) in a plane crash, before Spiderman (Andrew Garfield) makes his entrance in a whizz of red and blue stopping a bad man stealing a truck of nuclear materials.
But all is not happy on planet Spiderman, with his relationship with Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) strained after his promise to keep her safe from New York's surge of supervillains by leaving her.
Within a few bars, they begin a standard cliche on-off thing. But before long (i.e. quite a while down the line - this is a 2hr25 minute film) trouble lurks.
During the initial chase, Spiderman saved an Oscorp engineer called Max Dillon from being squished by the convoy of a hijacked nuclear material wagon and about 45 NYPD cars. Dillon duly becomes obsessed with Spiderman, including an amusing two-and-fro discussion with Gwen in a lift, but his birthday duly gets marred with him being made to stay behind and fix a faulty electric tank in a development lab.
Needless to say, things don't end well, and he duly winds up with glowing blue skin, electricity flowing through his veins and a thirst for power. He duly arrives in Times Square, which leads to him becoming annoyed with Spiderman for some reason or other and duly has a fight amidst collapsing video billboards and full-on slowed-down Matrix-y moments in a huge spectacular that's probably where most of the reported $200million budget went.
This desire for big budget explosions and the like seems to be deployed more than in the recent one, which was primarily focused on the central Peter Parker-Gwen Stacey coupling and largely ignored its fairly perfunctory villain.
Garfield does at least look more settled this time. In the first one, he seemed to be trying to adjust to the red and blue spandex, and failed to convince at times that he was a high school graduate. This time, he looks a lot more relaxed, and easily happy to wise-crack his way around beating villains.
You get the feeling that, at times, Marc Webb wanted to make another 500 Days of Summer with superheroes as its charismatic leads. That may have been interesting to watch, not least given it provided the more interesting moments in the first outing of this cast.
There is interest here - he wants to continue being a web-slinging wisecracker vigilante that the unseen editor of The Daily Bugle newspaper (one of the things this is missing from the 2002-07 films), she wants to move to England and study molecular medicine at Oxford University, he keeps seeing her dead father haunting him, she just wants to get on with life.
But as much is spent on the villains, although the motivations of Electro aren't really pointed out. More is played on the transformation of Harry Osborn, who discovers he shares a genetic wasting disease that turned his legendary scientist father green in death.
His transformation is more interesting to follow than that of Electro, even if he is the more menacing villain for the majority of the piece. It details father-son issues, a rekindling of a friendship with Parker, and desperation, which eventually leads to his villainry in a more plausible manner.
Plausibility is often played for in the movies like this that, although you'd imagine a hi-tech research corporation like the continually incapable Oscorp would be less vulnerable to be broken into and taken over on several occasions. There is much here that keeps in the important stuff about genetic research - after all, Spiderman wouldn't be around without it - but it also remarks its not a very stable company with such important stuff riding on it.
The final act of the film is the most interesting and most spoiler-y. It certainly sets up the scope for Garfield to show off his full dramatic range in heavier doses, which is an interesting end to the 2hr20 of assorted moods that it took to reach it. It was certainly an interesting plot point to set number 3 up.
This film does at least go further to answer the question if there is a point to a re-booted Spiderman within the decade that saw the man's first big screen adaptation. But it still struggles to juggle a dense and at times silly script with all the moods expected of it, which leads to things being confused at times.
Still, we can expect the studio's contractual obligations to see another go at getting it right in two years time.
3/5
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Sunday, 13 April 2014
The Long Road To The End
Usually at this time in a Premier League season, fans are excitedly posturing over possibilities for how the end of the campaign might pan out.
Newcastle United supporters, on the other hand, are just wishing the end of the season was now. So far, 2014 has been a pitiful time to support the club, with Sunderland, Spurs, Everton and Manchester United having all scored more goals at St. James' Park than the Toon Army have done themselves.
The miserable streak continued at Stoke City, with a flukey goal from one time transfer target Erik Pieters - his first goal since 2008 - continue a miserable recent run. An aggregate 12-0 defeat in the last four outings has reduced fans faith in the team significantly, with belief seemingly hurtling towards its lowest since promotion in 2010, and caps off the miserable streak since the previous fixture against the Potters.
Back on Boxing Day 2013, Newcastle racked up the biggest win of the campaign with a 5-1 win over Stoke at St. James' Park. Sure, Stoke had two players sent off, but you have to take advantage of that, and a good display in victory got Newcastle up to 6th in the table. Even better than that, the team was only 3 points from 4th placed Liverpool, and dreaming of an unlikely Champions League challenge like in 2011/12.
Since then, the wheels, doors, mirrors, panels and even the bloody roof have fallen off. Newcastle have only won 4 games since, and each is retrospectively tainted.
A 3-1 win at West Ham in mid-January included the performance that convinced PSG to sign Yohan Cabaye, a 1-0 win over Aston Villa should've been more but for poor Cisse and Remy finishing, and a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace was fairly undeserved.
This leaves out the 4-1 win over Hull City at the start of March - arguably Newcastle's best performance since that reverse game against the Potters. But that game is not remembered for some superb Tim Krul stops, a marvellous strike from Moussa Sissoko and a first Premier League strike from Vurnon Anita.
Instead, the main memory of that game is Pardew's moment of idiocy when he nudged his head at Hull midfielder David Meyler. Hull's Meyler may have escaped censure for pushing the manager and starting the fiasco in the first place, but Pardew was an idiot for stooping to his level.
Since that, things have collapsed at a fast rate. A poor performance in defeat at a Fulham side who hadn't won in 2 1/2 months beforehand was bad enough, but humiliating performances at home to Everton and a Manchester United team saving players for Bayern Munich were worse.
The true nadir had been the performance at Southampton, where it took 72 minutes and 3 Southampton goals for home keeper Artur Boruc to even have to make a save. This was a tragic performance where the team not so much didn't show up as abandoned all pretence of interest in playing the sport. If anything, 4-0 flattered the Toon Army defenders, and had Rob Elliott not made 3 superb stops to deny Jay Rodriguez, a once-in-a-generation humiliation could've occurred.
But somehow, despite not conceding three less than at St. Mary's, the game at Stoke was worse. A team with something to play for or even pretending to have something to play for may have caused trouble, but home keeper Asmir Begovic only had one save to make in the whole game.
While Newcastle may have had a penalty for a foul on Papiss Cisse by Geoff Cameron, and while Anita, Ameobi and Gosling all missed sitters, the performance was by and large dreadful. A puzzling 3-5-2 formation didn't seem to have any logic or comprehension to it, which was made even more bewildering by some confusing substitutions and position places.
Anita's right wing-back position was particularly confusing, and the confusion was not helped by the bizarre shoehorning of youngster Adam Armstrong into this position later in the game.
By the end, the players showed no hint of a fight back, with a Mike Williamson blocked shot and a wayward drive from Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa the nearest to an equaliser.
This was the moment Newcastle fans finally decided Pardew was a useless incompetent, with chants supporting his dismissal ringing out of the away end and the players were booed off. For most of this sullen year, the fans have largely stayed with the team, but this felt like a moment when the trust had been eroded.
Nevertheless, Pardew continued his usual attempts to evade criticism. This week's blame game saw the wind, the referee, the fans and the local media all blamed, rather than his failure to motivate a flagging squad from caring about proceedings.
Pardew's attempts to blame the local media for creating fan discontent was a bizarre move, albeit one fitting the club's preferred narrative after they banned the local media from the club earlier in the campaign. It duly led to the media embracing the ultimate in snarky behaviour, with a hilarious and some may argue fitting back page where the Sunday Sun apologised for the multitude of sins Pardew has managed in 2014.
Fan approval is also certainly low, with Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere full of negative comments and calling for Pardew's time to be up.
Under a more committed chairman, Pardew might be fretting for his job. Supposing Stoke and West Ham catch the freefalling Toon and take away what would only be a second top 10 finish since 2006, and Pardew may see his position under threat.
It goes without saying, however, that it would take a lot for Mike Ashley to throw millions at Pardew for him to leave. Relegation last season would certainly have seen him dismissed but aside from that, who knows.
The players certainly don't seem to have faith, with the multimillionaire team drifting without interest through matches.
Also not helpful was the arrival of new Managing Director Lee Charnley, who was appointed last week and announced the club would not engage in heavy spending. One or two new players in the summer, maybe, was in his words.
This is faintly predictable - after all, this year saw all of 2 players arrive, both on loan. But much more is required. A replacement for Yohan Cabaye, one (maybe two) new centre backs, a right back for the inevitable departure of Debuchy, two new wingers, two new strikers (four if Remy and Cisse leave) - in fact, something everywhere except in goal, and even then a departure of Tim Krul would change that.
The club as a whole appears to be like West Bromwich Albion last season. Last season, the Baggies raced out of the traps and sat 4th in November with a team built around a loan striker (Romelu Lukaku), before crawling to the end. They did just enough to retain a top 8 finish, but delivered an awful points return in the second half of the 2012/13 season that left Baggies fans uneasy.
They were right to feel that unease. This season, West Bromwich Albion have been in a relegation battle as well as having 3 managers. Barring a surprise win at Old Trafford in September, they've never got going and throwing away leads in the 94th minute in consecutive home games against Cardiff and Spurs has left them in a heap of trouble. In fact, Newcastle were the last team WBA beat at home - another unwanted skidmark against this train wreck of a year.
A failure for Newcastle's hierarchy to wake up and not arrest this slide will mean 2014/15 will be a desperate campaign. But at the moment, the club appears hell-bent on sleepwalking towards the end and possibly dark times ahead.
Newcastle United supporters, on the other hand, are just wishing the end of the season was now. So far, 2014 has been a pitiful time to support the club, with Sunderland, Spurs, Everton and Manchester United having all scored more goals at St. James' Park than the Toon Army have done themselves.
The miserable streak continued at Stoke City, with a flukey goal from one time transfer target Erik Pieters - his first goal since 2008 - continue a miserable recent run. An aggregate 12-0 defeat in the last four outings has reduced fans faith in the team significantly, with belief seemingly hurtling towards its lowest since promotion in 2010, and caps off the miserable streak since the previous fixture against the Potters.
Back on Boxing Day 2013, Newcastle racked up the biggest win of the campaign with a 5-1 win over Stoke at St. James' Park. Sure, Stoke had two players sent off, but you have to take advantage of that, and a good display in victory got Newcastle up to 6th in the table. Even better than that, the team was only 3 points from 4th placed Liverpool, and dreaming of an unlikely Champions League challenge like in 2011/12.
Since then, the wheels, doors, mirrors, panels and even the bloody roof have fallen off. Newcastle have only won 4 games since, and each is retrospectively tainted.
A 3-1 win at West Ham in mid-January included the performance that convinced PSG to sign Yohan Cabaye, a 1-0 win over Aston Villa should've been more but for poor Cisse and Remy finishing, and a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace was fairly undeserved.
This leaves out the 4-1 win over Hull City at the start of March - arguably Newcastle's best performance since that reverse game against the Potters. But that game is not remembered for some superb Tim Krul stops, a marvellous strike from Moussa Sissoko and a first Premier League strike from Vurnon Anita.
Instead, the main memory of that game is Pardew's moment of idiocy when he nudged his head at Hull midfielder David Meyler. Hull's Meyler may have escaped censure for pushing the manager and starting the fiasco in the first place, but Pardew was an idiot for stooping to his level.
Since that, things have collapsed at a fast rate. A poor performance in defeat at a Fulham side who hadn't won in 2 1/2 months beforehand was bad enough, but humiliating performances at home to Everton and a Manchester United team saving players for Bayern Munich were worse.
The true nadir had been the performance at Southampton, where it took 72 minutes and 3 Southampton goals for home keeper Artur Boruc to even have to make a save. This was a tragic performance where the team not so much didn't show up as abandoned all pretence of interest in playing the sport. If anything, 4-0 flattered the Toon Army defenders, and had Rob Elliott not made 3 superb stops to deny Jay Rodriguez, a once-in-a-generation humiliation could've occurred.
But somehow, despite not conceding three less than at St. Mary's, the game at Stoke was worse. A team with something to play for or even pretending to have something to play for may have caused trouble, but home keeper Asmir Begovic only had one save to make in the whole game.
While Newcastle may have had a penalty for a foul on Papiss Cisse by Geoff Cameron, and while Anita, Ameobi and Gosling all missed sitters, the performance was by and large dreadful. A puzzling 3-5-2 formation didn't seem to have any logic or comprehension to it, which was made even more bewildering by some confusing substitutions and position places.
Anita's right wing-back position was particularly confusing, and the confusion was not helped by the bizarre shoehorning of youngster Adam Armstrong into this position later in the game.
By the end, the players showed no hint of a fight back, with a Mike Williamson blocked shot and a wayward drive from Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa the nearest to an equaliser.
This was the moment Newcastle fans finally decided Pardew was a useless incompetent, with chants supporting his dismissal ringing out of the away end and the players were booed off. For most of this sullen year, the fans have largely stayed with the team, but this felt like a moment when the trust had been eroded.
Nevertheless, Pardew continued his usual attempts to evade criticism. This week's blame game saw the wind, the referee, the fans and the local media all blamed, rather than his failure to motivate a flagging squad from caring about proceedings.
Pardew's attempts to blame the local media for creating fan discontent was a bizarre move, albeit one fitting the club's preferred narrative after they banned the local media from the club earlier in the campaign. It duly led to the media embracing the ultimate in snarky behaviour, with a hilarious and some may argue fitting back page where the Sunday Sun apologised for the multitude of sins Pardew has managed in 2014.
Fan approval is also certainly low, with Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere full of negative comments and calling for Pardew's time to be up.
Under a more committed chairman, Pardew might be fretting for his job. Supposing Stoke and West Ham catch the freefalling Toon and take away what would only be a second top 10 finish since 2006, and Pardew may see his position under threat.
It goes without saying, however, that it would take a lot for Mike Ashley to throw millions at Pardew for him to leave. Relegation last season would certainly have seen him dismissed but aside from that, who knows.
The players certainly don't seem to have faith, with the multimillionaire team drifting without interest through matches.
Also not helpful was the arrival of new Managing Director Lee Charnley, who was appointed last week and announced the club would not engage in heavy spending. One or two new players in the summer, maybe, was in his words.
This is faintly predictable - after all, this year saw all of 2 players arrive, both on loan. But much more is required. A replacement for Yohan Cabaye, one (maybe two) new centre backs, a right back for the inevitable departure of Debuchy, two new wingers, two new strikers (four if Remy and Cisse leave) - in fact, something everywhere except in goal, and even then a departure of Tim Krul would change that.
The club as a whole appears to be like West Bromwich Albion last season. Last season, the Baggies raced out of the traps and sat 4th in November with a team built around a loan striker (Romelu Lukaku), before crawling to the end. They did just enough to retain a top 8 finish, but delivered an awful points return in the second half of the 2012/13 season that left Baggies fans uneasy.
They were right to feel that unease. This season, West Bromwich Albion have been in a relegation battle as well as having 3 managers. Barring a surprise win at Old Trafford in September, they've never got going and throwing away leads in the 94th minute in consecutive home games against Cardiff and Spurs has left them in a heap of trouble. In fact, Newcastle were the last team WBA beat at home - another unwanted skidmark against this train wreck of a year.
A failure for Newcastle's hierarchy to wake up and not arrest this slide will mean 2014/15 will be a desperate campaign. But at the moment, the club appears hell-bent on sleepwalking towards the end and possibly dark times ahead.
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
How I Met Your Mother - Last Forever: TV Review
If How I Met Your Mother has taught us one thing, its that Ted Mosby's children have incredible attention spans.
The show has been on the air for nine years, with 200+ episodes produced in that meantime chronicling the crazy lives of Ted, Barney, Robin, Marshall and Lily. Ted's children must have the world's best attention spans to be able to focus for nine year's worth of story in one sitting.
This stand-off certainly at least provided arguably the best line of the entire series, when the older Ted tells his kids "I kept this story brief and to the point!" - possibly the best laugh out loud moment of this hour.
Of course, demanding teenagers to sit still for nine years may not quite be realistic. But there has been much to admire over the show's run. Its willful defiance of conventional narrative coupled to plenty of good-natured humour and barbs was often the basis of some good viewing, even if it was sometimes prone to missteps (Season 8, for example, was largely forgettable).
Now, with the end of the road in sight, the advance buzz was with people wondering "What is the end going to look like?"
It starts, predictably, in 2005, with Robin's integration in the friendship circle - closely followed by the heady day of May 2013 when Barney and Robin's wedding took place. Season 9 has been building to this.
Think then, of what a smack in the face it must've felt like, when it was dropped at the end of the second act that they were divorced.
The broken woman that Robin becomes, however, is a fair depiction of life. As much as we want to maintain contact with the friends we grew up with, and continue the crazy stupid world we live in when we grow up, sometimes the party has to stop. Certainly, you'll want the party to stop if it contains your ex-husband and the man you could've married and blew it with.
When the party did stop, boy did it stop abruptly. After last week, when the knot had been tied and all we had seemingly had left to go through was Ted and The Mother's meeting and procession to when Ted begun telling his kids the story, and why.
There may have been some surprises and shocks along the way, but near the end, we finally got to see the scene we had been waiting for. The scene in the middle where Ted introduced himself to the mother was perfectly calibrated, and was exactly how it should've been played out, in the middle of a train station platform in the heavy rain, and was a perfect rendition of the big scene this whole thing has been building up to over the past nine years.
It would've been satisfying to end there. There'd been a hurricane of differing tricks, twists and turns as it fully - if a bit quickly - navigated their 30's and 40's in a whistle-stop run of information, but it somehow all stuck. Until, that is, the final ending parts.
This will go down as a very divisive end to a TV show. But it also feels underwhelming that it was essentially figured out ages ago in 2006, and it feels bizarre that this whole episode was engineered to go straight for the conclusion, and with all the Twitter-breaking outrage that followed.
There was a sizeable number who figured out the plotline of the death of the Mother long ago - several weeks ago, in fact, and it was sad and kept ludicrously low in the plot but was seemingly inevitable. Even then, had it been revealed she'd died and Ted was going to stop there, knowing he'd waited so long for his perfect woman only to lose her, nobody would've protested if he just said "I can't remarry again". It would've been understandable if his heart had been built up only to be torn to shreds.
It also felt underwhelming it just sort of ran through the death, going straight from "she got sick" to "Dad, she's been dead for six years" - way too fast in telly time to acknowledge what a sizeable thing killing off the mother from the title actually is, and that's why so many feel cheated by it.
In fact, Josh Radnor has done exceptionally well not just to be part of the sitcom where he's spent nearly all of it impersonated by Bob Saget. He, and the actors that play the kids, have done exceptionally well to keep quiet about this since when they filmed it all the way back in 2006.
It deserves some credit for accepting that real life can, for some people, be a painful kick in the balls, not follow the blueprints that you thought it was going to follow, and some people do not get the fairytale ending. But even then, it still feels very weird they decided to culminate the show with the ending that Seasons One-Five would've got in a conventional sitcom. Of course, its quite a long time after it seemed sane, doable or practical for Ted and Robin to resume their relationship.
As for everything else, its conceivable this episode should've been stretched out for a few more hours, rather than trying to cram a hurricane of information into one hour (48 minutes with adverts). A few episodes earlier in the season could have been condensed, allowing a few or perhaps even a half-season to play it out, rather than the fact it aired with a weirdly blip-blip-blip feeling filled with some amusing in-jokes (Cockamouse! Sonofabitch! Yellow umbrella!).
Lily and Marshall's parts certainly felt almost afterthought-y at times, although their happy ever after was always likely (Marshall gets to be a state supreme court judge with 3 kids, and Lily stays with). Alyson Hannigan certainly did well to pull of a dramatic heart-upsetting moment while wearing a bizarre white latex whale costume - no mean feat.
Barney gets the ultimate surprise in the form of a kid of his own after going on a "Perfect Month". This was probably the most surprisingly touching part - even with the pain of the earlier divorce.
Robin's parts worked for the first part, but the finale felt weird. Ted's kids persuading the broken father to ask her out using the fabled blue French horn from the pilot. This is the internet-breaker of a moment, and from afar and in depth, it still doesn't really scan properly.
All in all, there was plenty to admire for 40 of this show's 48 minutes. The last 8, however, is not included in this. Sure, its wasn't as painfully bad as Dexter's perplexing travesty of a conclusion. But is it legen... wait for it... dary?
Well, no. Legendary outrage amongst Tweeters, perhaps, but the show itself was a good show until the ending moments, and rather than answering all of our questions, it just leaves us dozens more that we'll probably have to answer ourselves.
3/5
The show has been on the air for nine years, with 200+ episodes produced in that meantime chronicling the crazy lives of Ted, Barney, Robin, Marshall and Lily. Ted's children must have the world's best attention spans to be able to focus for nine year's worth of story in one sitting.
This stand-off certainly at least provided arguably the best line of the entire series, when the older Ted tells his kids "I kept this story brief and to the point!" - possibly the best laugh out loud moment of this hour.
Of course, demanding teenagers to sit still for nine years may not quite be realistic. But there has been much to admire over the show's run. Its willful defiance of conventional narrative coupled to plenty of good-natured humour and barbs was often the basis of some good viewing, even if it was sometimes prone to missteps (Season 8, for example, was largely forgettable).
Now, with the end of the road in sight, the advance buzz was with people wondering "What is the end going to look like?"
It starts, predictably, in 2005, with Robin's integration in the friendship circle - closely followed by the heady day of May 2013 when Barney and Robin's wedding took place. Season 9 has been building to this.
Think then, of what a smack in the face it must've felt like, when it was dropped at the end of the second act that they were divorced.
The broken woman that Robin becomes, however, is a fair depiction of life. As much as we want to maintain contact with the friends we grew up with, and continue the crazy stupid world we live in when we grow up, sometimes the party has to stop. Certainly, you'll want the party to stop if it contains your ex-husband and the man you could've married and blew it with.
When the party did stop, boy did it stop abruptly. After last week, when the knot had been tied and all we had seemingly had left to go through was Ted and The Mother's meeting and procession to when Ted begun telling his kids the story, and why.
There may have been some surprises and shocks along the way, but near the end, we finally got to see the scene we had been waiting for. The scene in the middle where Ted introduced himself to the mother was perfectly calibrated, and was exactly how it should've been played out, in the middle of a train station platform in the heavy rain, and was a perfect rendition of the big scene this whole thing has been building up to over the past nine years.
It would've been satisfying to end there. There'd been a hurricane of differing tricks, twists and turns as it fully - if a bit quickly - navigated their 30's and 40's in a whistle-stop run of information, but it somehow all stuck. Until, that is, the final ending parts.
This will go down as a very divisive end to a TV show. But it also feels underwhelming that it was essentially figured out ages ago in 2006, and it feels bizarre that this whole episode was engineered to go straight for the conclusion, and with all the Twitter-breaking outrage that followed.
There was a sizeable number who figured out the plotline of the death of the Mother long ago - several weeks ago, in fact, and it was sad and kept ludicrously low in the plot but was seemingly inevitable. Even then, had it been revealed she'd died and Ted was going to stop there, knowing he'd waited so long for his perfect woman only to lose her, nobody would've protested if he just said "I can't remarry again". It would've been understandable if his heart had been built up only to be torn to shreds.
It also felt underwhelming it just sort of ran through the death, going straight from "she got sick" to "Dad, she's been dead for six years" - way too fast in telly time to acknowledge what a sizeable thing killing off the mother from the title actually is, and that's why so many feel cheated by it.
In fact, Josh Radnor has done exceptionally well not just to be part of the sitcom where he's spent nearly all of it impersonated by Bob Saget. He, and the actors that play the kids, have done exceptionally well to keep quiet about this since when they filmed it all the way back in 2006.
It deserves some credit for accepting that real life can, for some people, be a painful kick in the balls, not follow the blueprints that you thought it was going to follow, and some people do not get the fairytale ending. But even then, it still feels very weird they decided to culminate the show with the ending that Seasons One-Five would've got in a conventional sitcom. Of course, its quite a long time after it seemed sane, doable or practical for Ted and Robin to resume their relationship.
As for everything else, its conceivable this episode should've been stretched out for a few more hours, rather than trying to cram a hurricane of information into one hour (48 minutes with adverts). A few episodes earlier in the season could have been condensed, allowing a few or perhaps even a half-season to play it out, rather than the fact it aired with a weirdly blip-blip-blip feeling filled with some amusing in-jokes (Cockamouse! Sonofabitch! Yellow umbrella!).
Lily and Marshall's parts certainly felt almost afterthought-y at times, although their happy ever after was always likely (Marshall gets to be a state supreme court judge with 3 kids, and Lily stays with). Alyson Hannigan certainly did well to pull of a dramatic heart-upsetting moment while wearing a bizarre white latex whale costume - no mean feat.
Barney gets the ultimate surprise in the form of a kid of his own after going on a "Perfect Month". This was probably the most surprisingly touching part - even with the pain of the earlier divorce.
Robin's parts worked for the first part, but the finale felt weird. Ted's kids persuading the broken father to ask her out using the fabled blue French horn from the pilot. This is the internet-breaker of a moment, and from afar and in depth, it still doesn't really scan properly.
All in all, there was plenty to admire for 40 of this show's 48 minutes. The last 8, however, is not included in this. Sure, its wasn't as painfully bad as Dexter's perplexing travesty of a conclusion. But is it legen... wait for it... dary?
Well, no. Legendary outrage amongst Tweeters, perhaps, but the show itself was a good show until the ending moments, and rather than answering all of our questions, it just leaves us dozens more that we'll probably have to answer ourselves.
3/5
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