It really is amazing how much they had going for them, locked down, a guarantee, and they threw it all away with literally 1 episode. To take a decade-long success and throw it all in the trash on at the last second for no reason at all other than CB's enormous ill-placed pride on a self-insert that no one could ever idolize as much as he did.
Despite what they say in public, I cannot imagine in what universe they could possibly be thinking it was worth it. As far as How I Met Your Mother's legacy goes, I do think that as more and more time passes the fans of the show will be able to appreciate it again and simply ignore that one episode and re-embrace the 206 that came before it, so the work of the actors and director and all the other writers won't be entirely lost. But CT/CB? Their careers are finished. No one is ever going to forget what they did because it's not just as simple as one bad episode or one bad twist when that one episode and one twist means that they were lying and deceiving the public and even their own staff for a decade - and when it's so transparent as to what the sick reasoning behind destroying the show actually was. (It also makes them look even more like unprofessional idiots when they said things beforehand like 'oh you have to remember we were so young when we thought it up' or 'we know people are going to hate it but what can you do?' as if somebody was holding a gun to their head forcing them to make the actors film it. This was 100% their choice against the wishes and advice of literally everyone else involved in the production of the show and it's like they were trying to shirk the responsibility of that even before it aired.)
I'm still amazed at how close they were to having a surefire hit, starting in on a brand new series, riding the wave of one of the most innovative sitcoms of our age...and how badly it all went to poop in one forty minute mushroom cloud of a failnale. They had one job. One job.
If they'd gone with the alternte ending, they could have turned things around. Maybe. Barney and Robin's romantic arc drove the show, got up to a beautiful wedding, annnnnd then the whole show self-immolated. I don't want to know how that became the "good" idea in CB/CT's eyes, and now that we know how horribly insensitive the Ellie storyline was to one of their lead actors, there really are no words for the stupidity and/or callousness.
The divorce didn't make any sense, and was only needed, in the original vision, to put Robin on the shelf so Ted could swoop in and get her in the end (even though we were told we weren't going there, but whatever.) To have Robin lose her soulmate, wait in lonely exile until one of her best friends dies and that friend's widower has sufficiently grieved, to be literally back where she was in her early 20s, so the last quarter century made literally no difference -- augh. Bad, sloppy writing, not funny, not romantic, not heartwarming or hopeful or uplifting in any way. Slap in Robin's infertility and the love she lost finding his fulfillment in the one thing she physically could not provide for him even though we were shown, over and over that Barney loved and wanted Robin more than kids...yeah, over you, CB/CT.
Their "original version" was more important than maintaining a sustainable career? Okay then. More important than telling a cohesive story? Guess so. More important than taking the input from not only the rest of their staff, their cast, countless entertainment journalists and news sources, more than their viewership? Hope it was worth it. Still astounded.
Despite what they say in public, I cannot imagine in what universe they could possibly be thinking it was worth it. As far as How I Met Your Mother's legacy goes, I do think that as more and more time passes the fans of the show will be able to appreciate it again and simply ignore that one episode and re-embrace the 206 that came before it, so the work of the actors and director and all the other writers won't be entirely lost. But CT/CB? Their careers are finished. No one is ever going to forget what they did because it's not just as simple as one bad episode or one bad twist when that one episode and one twist means that they were lying and deceiving the public and even their own staff for a decade - and when it's so transparent as to what the sick reasoning behind destroying the show actually was. (It also makes them look even more like unprofessional idiots when they said things beforehand like 'oh you have to remember we were so young when we thought it up' or 'we know people are going to hate it but what can you do?' as if somebody was holding a gun to their head forcing them to make the actors film it. This was 100% their choice against the wishes and advice of literally everyone else involved in the production of the show and it's like they were trying to shirk the responsibility of that even before it aired.)
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If they'd gone with the alternte ending, they could have turned things around. Maybe. Barney and Robin's romantic arc drove the show, got up to a beautiful wedding, annnnnd then the whole show self-immolated. I don't want to know how that became the "good" idea in CB/CT's eyes, and now that we know how horribly insensitive the Ellie storyline was to one of their lead actors, there really are no words for the stupidity and/or callousness.
The divorce didn't make any sense, and was only needed, in the original vision, to put Robin on the shelf so Ted could swoop in and get her in the end (even though we were told we weren't going there, but whatever.) To have Robin lose her soulmate, wait in lonely exile until one of her best friends dies and that friend's widower has sufficiently grieved, to be literally back where she was in her early 20s, so the last quarter century made literally no difference -- augh. Bad, sloppy writing, not funny, not romantic, not heartwarming or hopeful or uplifting in any way. Slap in Robin's infertility and the love she lost finding his fulfillment in the one thing she physically could not provide for him even though we were shown, over and over that Barney loved and wanted Robin more than kids...yeah, over you, CB/CT.
Their "original version" was more important than maintaining a sustainable career? Okay then. More important than telling a cohesive story? Guess so. More important than taking the input from not only the rest of their staff, their cast, countless entertainment journalists and news sources, more than their viewership? Hope it was worth it. Still astounded.
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