Episode 13 - Ten Sessions
12 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Ted has ten sessions with Stella, a dermatologist, to remove his butterfly tattoo (301). He also has ten sessions in which to win her over as, despite their chemistry, she says she won’t date him. Featuring Britney Spears as Abby the receptionist.
The Good: I assume the producers knew that the show would be exposed to a whole new audience because of the presence of Britney Spears. It’s impossible to know for sure how much that influenced their choice of episode style. In the event they decided to produce a concept show with only one story revolving around their main character. I applaud them for this decision. I have often championed the idea that shows, particularly sit-coms, should focus more on one story and not try and force other characters into episodes unnecessarily. Ted’s story is the core of the show and it makes sense that he should get this focus in an episode which ended up with an audience much larger than the show had ever been seen by.
However this strategy leads to good and bad results. The big winner is Sarah Chalke’s character Stella. Chalke is no stranger to sitcoms (Roseanne, Scrubs) and gets a whole episode to establish her character. This she does with effortless charm and ease. Years of knowing how to project emotions simply and clearly and mix in comic lines make her a good choice to be Ted’s interest here.
She mentions being at a St Patrick’s Day party. Those paying attention will remember that in the previous episode Ted said his kids’ mother was out that night, could Stella be her? It seems unlikely as one would assume that will be a much bigger revelation but it is a nice red herring if she isn’t.
The use of the ten sessions to show time passing allows a couple of nice bits of continuity with Marshall eating shrimps and Lily growing her nails. The two minute date is TV romance at its best or worst depending on your perspective. But whether you find it sweet or sickening it is a clever idea and a nice way to demonstrate the kind of gimmickry which marks How I Met Your Mother out from other shows.
Barney making a fireball at the table is funny because his feelings are so clearly hurt by the suggestion that magic is lame. They add a nice bit of plausibility to Ted’s date by having Wendy the waitress and old friend Ranjit (101, 111) help out.
The Bad: Unfortunately the largest audience the show has ever had will have seen the worst side of How I Met Your Mother as well. Sadly this is the forced nature of much of the humour. Throughout its existence, the show’s admirable insistence on real sounding dialogue has meant jokes often seem forced or end up being very tame.
Here we have too many lines with no subtlety or plausibility. The sequence with Ted’s embarrassment in the cinema is typically obvious. It is followed by Lily saying how hard it is not to bite her nails a few seconds after agreeing to quit biting. Almost the exact same joke follows that with Marshall saying he mastered memory with a book he now can’t remember the location of. Finally Ted saying I thought you said Alan instead of Abby is just stupid and makes him look either very weird or obviously lying.
Sadly the shows greatest strength, Barney Stinson, doesn’t shine here. We are given no good reason as to why Ted should believe Barney’s lies about growing a moustache. The fact that Ted thinks it is a lie initially makes it more irritating that he falls for it with no explanation. It’s not clear why Barney yells at Abby down the phone either. We have not often seen him be this rude without provocation and it seems like it was manufactured in order to link it to footage we have already seen.
Of course for many casual viewers the episode will hinge on what they thought of Britney Spears’ portrayal of nervous, naïve Abby. For those who saw her movie Crossroads we know she can passably act as herself. Unfortunately she is given a slightly complex part here. Abby is meant to be naively coming onto Ted while quietly doubting herself the whole time. It is a subtlety that doesn’t come across in her performance which is forced. I blame the writing more than her though. The jokes written for her sound about as unnatural as anything we have seen on the show.
Comic Highlight: Marshall goes to see Stella to “subtly” discover if she has feelings about Ted. She tells him she will have to check out a mole on his neck. As she begins to tell him about her crush on Ted he completely overreacts with fear and misses what she is saying: “Can you stop talking about your other patients! I’m dying here woman!”
How I rate your episode: With the pressure on How I Met Your Mother to deliver something special, we get a very human reaction. The more the show plays to its strengths (clever concepts, real looking characters and dialogue), the more of its weaknesses are revealed (unsubtle, poor humour and lines which seem unnatural). Chances are if you find Ted’s two minute date charming then this show is for you. However if you are waiting for belly laughs you will be sorely disappointed. I wouldn’t say this episode summed up the whole show though; the presence of Britney brings out more of the negative from the writers than they normally supply.
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