How I Met Your Mother: Final Season?

Last night was the eighth season premiere of How I Met Your Mother. This was supposed to be the final season, and hopefully it still will be, although there is chatter on the Internet that they could try to pull out another season after this one.

I hope not.

I say that as someone who used to love this show. I fell in love with this show the very first time I saw it, which was on a whim - Alyson Hannigan, a Buffy alum, was going to be in it, so I tuned in. It quickly became must-see tv for me. And the first four and half/five seasons still are - HIMYM is in syndication now and whenever it's on, the boyfriend and I tune in. Sam was also an easy convert to the show - I made him watch one episode once and he was so excited to find out I had the dvds - I think we watched all five first seasons straight through over the course of several weeks. I let him watch with the caveat, though, that the show is not the same show now that it was back then.

And it's not.

After last night's episode, Sam goes, "This show really isn't that funny anymore, is it?" Not only is it not funny, but I can't relate to it anymore either. Its humor used to be quirky and weird and original, but now it goes for lame and obvious and dumb. I think the writers/showrunners got lazy. Or they just don't care about these characters anymore. Or they're just in it for the paycheck now (which is probably why they're talking of extending it another season). But besides the humor, these used to be characters I wanted to hang out with, because I saw myself in them. I used to think the HIMYM gang used to be the most realistic ensemble on tv - you could see why they were friends, and you wanted to hang out with them. Who the mother was or how Ted met her didn't even matter after awhile, because the journey was so enjoyable. I used to think the storytelling techniques on this show were great, too - the jumping around, the playing with time, the continuity (oh my God, I used to love the continuity!!)

But now...

Now I'm just in it to see how this trainwreck ends. Now, I AM watching to see who the mother is and how Ted meets her, but that's about it.

Oh, show - we'll always have the first five seasons!