Spoilers ahoy as we discuss How I Met Your Mother, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and The Office
The end of a television show should be like a hypothetically great break up. Think the final frames of Saturday matinee classic The Way We Were, where scruffy activist Barbara Streisand (you, me, the viewer) spies the golden and handsome Robert Redford (the television show in question) across a New York street. The former lovers acknowledge each other with a smile, fondly recalling the time they spent together but also okay with being apart. However, life is rarely perfect. Parting ways can be more like ?Why did I waste so much of my personal time listening to you talk crap?? than of the sweet sorrow variety.
How I Met your Mother is the latest series finale clogging up your social media feeds with cries of ?Not good enough!? After nine years following central protagonist Ted Mosby through his twenties and early thirties navigate the dating world of New York while his future self explains to two very patient teenagers how all this relates to his meeting their mother, the story finally reached its final chapter. The season eight finale stopped dangling the mystery of the mother and introduced us to the charming Cristini Milotti, star of Broadway’s Once, as the woman who would capture Ted’s heart. Season nine dedicated itself to meandering digressions and flash-forwards before Ted and the Mother finally meet-cute in the rain. However, the writers then’revealed the Mother died and now-widower Ted was about to ask out his on/off ex and constant friend Robin.
When it premiered HIMYM immediately filled the Friends shaped void in our television schedules and attracted a strong following. It promised a story about a journey and can’t-live-without-you-love. What it delivered was a lot of guest appearances and superficial character development. Viewers felt cheated after a nearly a decade of paying attention.
Here are some other shows that ruined their legacies when it came to the last ten minutes:
Lost
The Office (US)
Grey’s Anatomy
Jeanne Sutton @jeannedesutun