Browsing through titles on Netflix I came across the TV series ‟How I Met Your Mother” and, remembering with fondness having watched the whole series twice during my stay in upstate New York, I decided to watch an episode for the sake of nostalgia.
Now I am almost at the end of the 22 episode first season and trying as I can to slam the brakes because I just don’t have the time to binge watch another series on Netflix ( It happens to the best of us, it is true ).
I love the cast, the characters, the stories, the flashbacks and flashforwards and the narration of old Ted. And there are some true life lesson to learn from the show.
It was nostalgic to see how Barney and Robin met for the first time knowing they would end up complementing each other and married in the end. And I say the end because the show’s finale does not exist for me.
Like many fans, I resented the finale’s forced twist ending. Yet, as a writer I can understand what happened. Not that it made the creator’s decision any more acceptable, but at least it provides some insight in a TV series’s production process.
You see, many shows struggle to make it past a pilot ( that is a ‘demo’ of the show, usually the first episode of the first season) and after a show gets slotted to air, it can be cancelled within weeks of its start. I have seen this happen with a few shows while living in Los Angeles, though I could not tell you which ones or nor would you remember them because they were cancelled and cast into TV oblivion.
Making it to the end of one season is an achievement. Producing 9 seasons is a miracle, and not a standard ( as many binge watchers would believe ). And the length of a show’s run ( that is to say, it’s existence ) depends on, well, you guessed it: ratings.
But what does this mean to the show’s writers and producers? Well, lets say you have a story in mind, in this case, Ted telling his kids about his days before meeting their mother as a subconscious way to hint that he would like to date Robin again ( loser Ted, but more on him later. )
In a short time span, say, three seasons, this arch would make sense. It would not be a particularly good arch twist even on a good day ( to be honest ) but whatever. The problem was that the show was extended season after season after season, and the original arch became a bridge. We learned more about the characters, the characters learned more about themselves, and the original arch just was not enough any more.
Which brings me to Barney and Robin. Their characters are the ones which experienced the most change. Barney with his deep seeded daddy issues, as was Robin, and Robin with her unwillingness to an emotional commitment, as was Barney. They changed, they evolved, and they became better version of themselves... this is the definition of a protagonist as stated in Writing 101.
If you ask me, the show should have been called, ‟How Your Uncle Barney Met Your Aunt Robin.”
BAM!
Anyhow, Look at Ted Shmosby on the other hand. After all those years, after a marriage and two children, he is still standing below the window of a girl who sees him as just a friend while holding up a stupid blue french horn. Zero change, zero growth. He is still the same narcissistic douche he was his whole life.
But what is a narcissistic douche? Excellent question, because watching Ted really helped me understand what the term ‘narcissist’ means.
You see, I remember from my teens reading the original Greek legend of Narcissus - a man so gorgeous and self-centered that he found himself incapable of falling in love with any of the most beautiful women in Greece. One day while wondering in the nature, he came across a perfectly still pond of crystal clear water. He saw his own reflection and found the love he had been looking for. The gods punished him for this and turned him into a flower, the aptly named Narcissus flower.
Growing up I never understood the difference between vanity, egoism, self-centeredness, and narcissism. But Ted Shmosby explained:
A narcissist is a person with some relatively high intellectual upbringing who thinks his ideas and his view of the world are so innately infallible ( that is, he thinks he is always right ), that he does not only not listen or consider other points of view, but thinks of them as being inferior to his own.
With this in mind ( and understanding that Narcissism is a counterproductive habit/characteristic ) it is fun to watch the show and see how wrong Ted always was, and how hard he worked to force everyone around him into his vision of the world, or in this case, of his search for ‘the one.’
In a sense, Ted impersonates the classic ‘romantic fool looking for true love,’ seen countless times in books, movies and TV shows. But really, who is this ‘love fool?’ He is a person looking for true love who never finds it because he should be looking for ‘real love,’ the kind that exists outside his head in the real world - imperfect, messy, and painful: human.
I mean, seriously, how could a man like that ever be a good boyfriend/husband if when he looks at his girl/wife he does not see the person but the avatar of his fantasy?
Meh.
But let us get back to Barney and Robin. Their stories were real. These were broken people at the beginning. Fiercely independent and terrified of commitment. Yet it was all a mask to hide their true pain inside. And it was only when each addressed and came to terms with his/her own pain that they matured and were ready for the next stage in life.
Think about it. At the beginning they both wandered into McLaren’s pub because they needed friends. Aw....
Eff it. I am watching season 2 tonight! :D
-Georg Freese
PS: I did not mention Marshall and Lily’s relationship, which deserves a blog of its own. But let me just say what the Marshall actor Jason Segel said about them, ‟What I like about M & L is that while in most sitcoms the married couple are always ripping on each other, these two are always supporting each other.” And this key difference is what makes their relationship/marriage inspiring.
Life is not easy. Life is messy. And it takes a lot of work to, well, to keep a relationship alive.
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