Dear Ted

Dear Ted,

I’ll start as plainly as I mean to go on. I’ve always had a sort of curious respect for you, Ted. In everyday life, it seems that “the survival of the fittest” is the most unimpeachable of modern maxims. In school classrooms kids learn about “the preservation of favored races”, as Darwin put it, before they’re released into the playground to see it for themselves; the athletic cool kids swaggering to the top of the tree whilst the chubby loners dwindle wistfully far below. At work, the highfliers form their couth cliques and sneer with derision at the office’s pen pushers, whilst in romance the head-turners seek each other out with finesse and leave the rest to squabble over the scraps. But then there’s you, Mr Mosby. Since I tuned into “How I Met Your Mother’s” pilot just a few months ago, it’s become pronounced that you buck the trend, somewhat, as far as this tried and tested “survival” axiom is concerned.

Let me clarify (again, in decidedly frank terms- sorry): you’ve never exactly fitted in with the premium company you keep, but for seven years you’ve continued to subvert life’s hierarchy and share their booth at McLarens. Now, for six years this formula more or less worked handsomely; the series is, purportedly, your story, and it was excusable to see you fluster around as an involved narrator whilst Lily, Marshall, Robin and Barney forged their own stories in the Big Apple. But in this seventh season, something’s changed. With some perverse stroke of chance, some warped version of evolution, that gut-busting clique of yours has abruptly and inexplicably started to come apart at the seams: the cool kids have tumbled from atop their tree. Of course, I’m not putting it all on you finally putting the dampener on your friends’ fires: their lives and the situations they get themselves into just aren’t fun anymore, either. It’s like milk taking seven years to go bad. Think back five years to “Slap Bet” of Season Two. Whilst Lily, Marshall and Barney invented a laugh-a-minute slapping vow that would go on to span five seasons, Robin’s past as an ailing pop star surfaced: it was telly gold, “Friends” couldn’t have done it better. You were extraneous, true, but audiences could get over it. Now? The days of “Slap Bet” are dead and buried, and episode upon episode the five of you flounder about aimlessly and colorlessly before saying your goodbyes. Take this week’s episode: “The Drunk Train”.

Seven-year itch: A different show to 2005's

I guess it’s prudent, given what I’ve said about HIMYM’s demise being principally down to its character failings, to take the gang member by member. I’ll start with Marshall and Lily. Note the wishful use of “and”. Lamentably, these two have steadily become “this one”; I forget the last time either of them had a laugh out loud moment without the other’s involvement. Granted, they’ve always been a natural pairing (having been involved for 16 years), but up until this ill-fated season they could readily hold their own as individual characters, too; think “Little Minnesota” of Season Four, where Marshall and Robin spent some gut-bustingly droll QT together, or even Lily’s constant but tickling meddling in your love life. Nowadays they’re less Beyonce and Jay and more Jedward; they just don’t come separately anymore. “The Drunk Train” opened with Lily and Marshall encouraging yourself, Robin and that apish, therapist boyfriend she’d picked up to feel for the kick of their unborn baby. This is the same footloose, Loch Ness-believing, hysterical Lily and Marshall that romped on your kitchen floor in episode one (apologies if that’s the first you knew of it). Change happens in seven years, true, but does it have to be life-sucking, mind-numbing change a la the Eriksens? After their torturously humdrum first scene, Marshallandlily wiled away the next twenty minutes at a Vermont retreat with Robin and the aforementioned Kevin (whose very name, even, seems to call for the deepest of slumbers), mulling over their petty point scoring marriage. The twosome acquiesced, achingly slowly, that they would no longer live perpetually indebted to one another for trivial domestic favours. Well Marshallandlily, I’m much less ready to bury the hatchet, and following those disastrous twenty minutes you owe me big.

Brave Man: Kevin looked set to spend a tedious life with Robin

As drab as it has become, the Marshallandllily unit has suffered the “Ted effect” pretty lightly when one remembers Robin. The first season kicked off with Ms Scherbatsky bursting into your lives: the driven but dorkish golden girl of the whole operation. Season Four’s “Wooooo!” saw her return to her freewheeling best after a far too lengthy stint as your much better half (the most mighty mismatching since Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green, whilst we’re on the subject). She “wooo!”d with her fellow singletons, she charmed and she showed that, four years in, she was still HIMYM’s undisputed princess. In “Drunk Train”, though, her recent knack for being an irksome yawn reached a crescendo. She spent the majority of it toying with Kevin’s proposal of marriage, despite having been intent on ditching him for Barney a couple of weeks back, and then sniveled when he scarpered. Time not spent furrowed-brow and pondering life as a wife was spent bemoaning her recently discovered infertility, before asserting her wish to remain childless. Baffling. And this is one of America’s former best-loved comedies? Robin’s character has lost the self-assuredness, consistency and zealousness of seasons past, and acquired senseless inconsistencies, alienating contradictions and an uncanny ability to imitate Moaning Myrtle.

Genius: Is this how you get people to find you remotely interesting, Ted?

Barney remains the series’ sole sliver of credibility. With him, it’s evident that consistency and cheer doesn’t need to come a cropper to weighty storylines and added character complexity (listen up, Robin). Barney’s taken his fair share of battering lately; paternal question marks, unrequited love and uncharacteristically adult relationships have all been chucked at the perpetual playboy. Even the season’s debut episode, which revealed Barney is soon to walk down the aisle, failed to dent Mr Stinson’s hilarity, viability and conformity to viewer expectation. “Drunk Train” was another showcasing of timeless Stinson antics, with his alarm at not scoring a bed buddy on the notoriously racy last train to Manhattan of the evening reminiscent of pre-woe Barney. It didn’t especially matter that he had become enamored with a mystery girl and was cavorting with other women merely to take his mind off her; it was merry regardless of the deeper stuff. That said, Ted, I urge you not to cling to Barney anymore. This desperate trying to emulate his potent, viewer-friendly charisma is coming off more than a tad sad (playfully asking him to be your “wingman” and screeching “screw ‘the one’!” were memorable lows). The chance to wile the audience died about six years ago, so do us all a favour and go out gracefully as your dependable, wet-weekend self.

I take pride in my stamina, and told myself about five minutes into “The Drunk Train” I’d make it to the end, by hook or by crook. Thus, I was privy to your slapdash declaration of love to Robin in the episode’s final couple of scenes. I’ve no doubt, Ted, that a few seasons ago this would have served as a hum-dinger of a cliffhanger (indeed, I’m pretty sure it has done on several occasions already…), but I found it hard to muster up even a morsel of interest this time around. Love Robin. Love Lily. Love Marshall, if you fancy it. I’m through with giving a damn.

Yours sincerely,

One thoroughly exasperated former fan

One Line Wonder

Future Ted (perhaps remembering CBS’ 2013 list of returning shows): Kids, sometimes you realise the journey you’ve been taking has reached its final stop.

The Fortune Telly-er

If coming shows don’t involve a hefty amount of Barney-time they might as well not air. Having said that, I’ve got a pesky vision of Quinn (the stripper introduced only this episode as his potential love interest) turning out to be the much-hyped future Mrs Stinson…