VIDEO: How HIMYM Should Have Ended

Leave it up to Mr. Ricardo Dylan for fixing the "How I Met Your Mother" series finale and giving us this rather perfect ending. It ends on the perfect note and in the perfect spot - how Ted meets the mother.

It doesn't allude to Tracey passing away, it doesn't hint at Ted ending up with Robin later, it ends exactly where it should have; under the yellow umbrella.

While many folks are still outraged at the real HIMYM finale, I think the sticking point is not that the mother dies (which has been hinted at for years), it's that Ted ends up with Robin at the very end.

Again, I think the producers wanted to try to tie everything up into a little bow by making it come full circle, but that wasn't the point of the show. It was learning how Ted met the love of his life, not how he moved on to the woman of his dreams ten years ago.

How I Met Your Mother Series Finale Thoughts

Well, that was ... something. If I had to describe the series finale of How I Met Your Mother in a word, it would probably be "ungratifying".

I'm really not quite sure what to think about the HIMYM finale. In a way, I don't think there was really any sort of ending that would have satisfied everyone, but they opted to go the fairly conservative route.

The one-hour finale itself was plagued with the same problem that affected the series as a whole; they dragged it out too long. The finale episode could just as easily have been 22 minutes long, but for whatever reason they decided to stretch it out.

In retrospect, the "weekend in a season" was not a very good idea at all, as it got old very quickly. Many of the episodes found themselves long, drawn out and pointless to the overall story.

At the very end, the writers opted to go the "full circle" route, which has been used umpteen times on television shows (the most recent example I can think of was "Lost"), but in this case it didn't really fit.

If you think about it, the series has been nine seasons of building up towards the penultimate moment of meeting the mother. And then suddenly you realize the mother has died and Ted just ends up with Robin. Not exactly the way you had hoped it would end, right? I kind of feel like the rug was just pulled out from under me.

On that same token, the entire ninth season was built leading up to Barney and Robin's wedding, only to find out they end up divorced shortly thereafter. So what was the point of that?

I thought the scene at the train station was probably one of the best of the season, and am surprised they just didn't end it right there. That would've been a great way to finish off the series; Ted and Tracey huddled under their yellow umbrella. End scene.

Ending on that theme of serendipity seemed very fitting. But again, instead they decided to let it drag on a liiiittle too long.

As an aside, I had three predictions for the finale and two of them came true. There have been hints for years that the mother might not make it, and it seems like the seed was planted long ago that Ted and Robin would eventually end up together.

I thought that the mother (Tracey) might actually end up being Lily's half-sister or something, simply because the two look and act so similarly. Alas, that didn't happen ... but the other two did.

And what was up with Barney suddenly having a kid? For a moment there, I thought the mother might be Robin, and somehow she miraculously was able to conceive ... but we learn that the mother was, nobody?

As great as the scene was in the hospital where Barney was talking to his newborn, that storyline itself just seemed unnecessary. So once again, the identity of a mother is kept a mystery. Was that done on purpose or what? Perhaps that will somehow tie into the HIMYM  spin-off.

Overall, I think the series finale of HIMYM was alright. It's not really the one I was hoping for, but I understand why the writers chose to go that route. They obviously had it in their minds from the very beginning that Ted would eventually end up back with Robin ... it was just a matter of when.

Apparently they filmed the scenes with Ted and Tracey's kids on the couch at the very beginning of the series nine years ago, so they knew that was happening from the beginning.

How I Met Your Mother was a great series, but that ending just did not reflect the overall quality of the show. It wasn't the best ending ... but it was an ending.

How I Met Your Mother: Stuck in Neutral

Do you ever get the feeling like the television show you're watching is progressing, and yet at the same time, it's not moving at all? That's the sense I'm getting right now with the final season of How I Met Your Mother.

I feel like the show is stuck in neutral; the characters are struggling to gain some semblance of traction or character development as it builds up to the eventual "mother moment", but right now it's failing miserably.

Season 9 of How I Met Your Mother is very unique in the fact that viewers sort of already know how it ends. We know that Ted meets his mother, they get married, have kids and live happily ever after.

But what we don't know ... is how we get there.

In an attempt to progress the storyline towards its eventual crescendo, the show has actually been stagnant for a good 3-4 episodes now. As the season progresses and we're still leading up towards Robin and Barney's wedding, I just keep wishing I could fast forward towards the end.

Miraculously, the season is already eight (yes, eight) episodes deep and the plot and characters have barely progressed at all. The same tired backdrop of the Farhampton Inn has overstayed its welcome, and plot points which could have been touched on over the course of two to three episodes has now been stretched out over nearly half a season.

The lack of differentiating set pieces is one qualm I have in particular this season on HIMYM, but the other one and more importantly is the lack of character development. Namely, the fact that there have been hardly any redeeming qualities of the main characters in Season 9.

Ted has been neurotic and as depressing as ever. Lily used to have extremely endearing qualities about her character, but this season she's just coming off as an angry alcoholic. Barney and Robin still have yet to resemble a legitimate "couple". And lastly, Marshall has been sitting in a hummer for the better part of 6-7 episodes.

So basically, the qualities that made viewers develop a connection to these characters over the course of eight seasons have been completely abandoned in Season 9 in an effort to stretch the series for one last year.

There's no "Barney being Barney", no Ted being his typical hopeless and yet hopeful self, and Lily has almost transformed into Robin 2.0.

Not every episode and not even every season of a television show will be memorable. But in a network sitcom, there is at least some form of progression. Characters grow and evolve as seasons progress, and that's part of the reason why people are drawn in; because they come along for the journey with those characters.

Right now on How I Met Your Mother, there has been nearly no progression in Season 9. It feels like things are going nowhere, while at the same time you know there will be some sort of a conclusion by season's end.

The writers have sprinkled a few payoff moments here and there throughout the first eight episodes of the final season, but they have been few and far between. And they haven't been nearly poignant enough to make it worth sitting through everything else.

I have my own theory as to what the writers have planned for the end of the series, and I have no doubt that it will eventually be a satisfying end to what has otherwise been a great series with countless memorable moments.

But at this point, it feels like I'll take another nine seasons before we finally find out how Ted met his eventual wife.