Monday, September 22, 2008

How I Met Coupling...

I am super excited about tonight's season premiere of How I Met Your Mother. I've been watching the show diligently since the first season. And I can't wait for start of season 4.

I love the fact the show doesn't run in a linear fashion. There are flashbacks, flash-forwards (I was about to write "forward-backs" there for a moment), and flash-in-betweens.

The episode "Lucky Penny"was told in reverse as Ted and Robin tried to figure out who's fault it was that they missed their flight to Chicago. What was cool was looking for the little visual clues that something had happened and then going back one scene to find out what had happened.

The episode "Ted Mosby: Architect" was told from multiple points of view. So not only was it funny to see each person's interpretations, but there was a cool twist at the end that made me want to go back and rewatch the episode to look for clues.

It reminds me of Coupling (the far superior British version) in both the characters and storytelling. Coupling used non-linear storytelling as well, with multiple viewings of the same scene from different viewpoints, flashbacks from each character that piece together the story, and seeing how 2 different storylines converge. There was also a whole discussion on the Television Without Pity forums where they likened each the characters on How I Met Your Mother to characters on Coupling.

Ted is like Jack, the main protaganist and sort-of anal voice-of-reason.

Robin is like Susan, brash and confident.

Barney is of course, Jeff, the crazy friend with weird soliloquies and random asides.

I'm not sure I can equate Marshall and Lily to Sally and Patrick, but they're both nice couples. :)

Anyways, can't wait for tonight! I hope Stella is the mother!

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