How I Met Your Mother: The Complete Season Five

Can you believe it’s been five years and we still haven’t met the mother? Yes, the team behind this popular CBS sitcom managed to string us along for yet another year in Season Five, but the formula is finally starting to show some signs of age. It could be the demands of other Hollywood projects, new babies at home, or just going through the motions in familiar routines, but I couldn’t help picking up the feeling that the core actors just weren’t as energized or committed to the show this season. It’s also possible that there might have been some changes in the writing staff that negatively impacted the show, as the scripts seemed to deliver fewer laughs and memorable situations this time around. Whatever the reason, the show continued to be a reliable performer but not quite as winning as past years.

Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) and Robin (Cobie Smulders) spend the first half of the season playing out the remainder of their ill-conceived and doomed romantic relationship, putting a damper on Barney’s typically outrageous womanizing exploits that unfortunately carries over into the back half of the season as well. Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) continue their happy marriage with barely any hiccups, leaving Ted (Josh Radnor) the odd man out with a surprisingly inactive love life. He starts a new career as an architecture professor, meets the odd girl here and there, but goes the entire season without a significant romance. The only notable event is his date with a girl who happens to be the roommate of his future wife, according to his ongoing dialogue with his future kids. Ted and the viewers don’t see the roommate or learn her name, leaving us no closer to solving the show’s central mystery.

As for highlights, the show hit its milestone 100th episode this season and the team put some extra effort into it, designing an elaborate musical number around the considerable talents of Neil Patrick Harris with supporting roles from the rest of the cast and dozens of extras. There’s also another brief musical number in a different episode featuring Ted and Barney and it’s worth seeking out. Also, for those keeping track, Barney receives the fourth of five slaps awarded to Marshall early in the show’s run. Aside from those special moments, there’s little new to see in the rest of the season.

The DVD box set crams all 24 episodes onto just 3 DVDs, allowing the series to be contained in a space-saving standard DVD case. That leaves little room for special features, which include bloopers and behind the scenes footage on the making of the two musical numbers.

How I Met Your Mother: The Complete Season Five is now available on DVD.

Article first published as DVD Review: How I Met Your Mother: The Complete Season 5 on Blogcritics.

How I Met Your Mother Season 4

While it may always carry some stigma of being a Friends clone, How I Met Your Mother is a consistently entertaining and sharply written show that stands strongly on its own merits. Led by the breakout performance of Neil Patrick Harris as charming womanizer Barney, and ably abetted by his amiable co-stars, the show has somehow managed to eke out nearly 100 episodes while still concealing the identity of the titular mother.

Each episode begins with a narrator (Bob Saget) as the “father” in the future as he regales his kids with never-ending tales of his bachelorhood. If I was one of the kids, I would have walked out around episode 2, but at this point the framing device is more of an in-joke than anything else. The real show is the father’s present-day bachelor adventures with his group of friends as he continues his search for a wife. Just like Friends, it’s odd how much time the friends spend with each other and how they fund their comfortable lives in Manhattan with so little focus on work, but put aside the logic and just let the snappy writing work its magic.

Near the end of Season 3, Ted the father (Josh Radnor) had entered a serious relationship with Stella (Sarah Chalke), while Barney set his sights on Robin (Cobie Smulders), and Marshall and Lily (Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan) continued their happy marriage. Could Stella be the mother? Nope. Season 4 quickly dispels that theory with a traumatic near-wedding that leaves Ted emotionally scarred. This being a comedy, he recovers fairly quickly and continues his quest for his soul mate. Barney’s affections are also put on the back burner for the bulk of the season while he continues his legendary bachelorhood, while Marshall and Lily continue being Marshall and Lily. In short, it’s more of the same from the previous three seasons, with a new assortment of memorable moments that include the introduction of the “Woo Girls”, an extreme dating technique called the Naked Man, and Barney’s unique approach to video resumés.

The DVD box set condenses the full series onto three discs. The bonus features are scattered throughout the discs and include commentaries, a Season 3 recap, a Barney music video, a gag reel, and footage from the cast’s appearance at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. How I Met Your Mother Season 4 is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.