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How I Met Your Mother, which entered its fifth season last night on CBS, resembles Friends in its outlines. Both sitcoms follow a group of young men and women coming of age in New York City. But there's also something similar in the experience of being a fan of the two shows—namely, a suspicion that it might be cooler not to be a fan. There's no shame in admitting that you spent a night watching Seinfeld reruns—Ooh, which ones? goes the response. With Friends, a certain sheepishness attaches. What did you do last night? Um, caught this great episode of Friends on TBS, where Ross and Rachel ... Never mind.
Being a fan of HIMYM is a bit like that, and not without reason. While the show boasts one of the best characters on any current sitcom—Neil Patrick Harris' rightly celebrated Barney Stinson—it also features one of the most frustrating: Josh Radnor's Ted Mosby, whose painfully earnest pursuit of true love can bog down an otherwise rip-roaring episode full of ribald wordplay and hysterical gags. At its best, the show is funny and heartwarming; at its worst, plain sappy. To help fans decide whether to don their MacLaren's T-shirts or keep their love undercover like Barney and Robin, Brow Beat is inaugurating a new feature, The HIMYM Shame Index. Each week, we'll enumerate the latest episode's great moments and its embarrassing ones and decide whether Mother has made us proud.
Shameful:
—Robin's use of the tired phrase "slow your roll."
—The endless talk about "the talk."
—The episode's persistent use of Vampire Weekend's "Oxford Comma"; HIMYM's creators seem to have a soft spot for indie rock, and while in the past they've been known to underscore a broken heart (Ted's, natch) with an apt Pavement track, this felt like a reach for hipness.
—Ted's lame dream sequence. Really, the forgot-to-wear-pants thing? You're better than that, HIMYM.
Awesome:
—Marshall chiding Lily for not using her "indoor ‘woo!' " Adorable.
—Barney and Robin's use of flugelhorn as a code word for when things have gone too far in bed or, later, in their fledgling relationship.
—Barney's disdain for brunch.
—"T-Dog, you're in the wrong room bro." And just about the whole scene in the economics classroom—HIMYM is at its best when it's playing Ted's earnestness for laughs. His uncertainty about how to spell professor was particularly amusing.
—Marshall's unilateral declaration of Tuxedo Night. "Didn't we meet on a yacht?"
All in all, more to be proud about than ashamed of in this episode, plus some very good signs for the rest of the season: The Robin and Barney plotline shows promise, and Cobie Smulders and Alyson Hannigan are no longer hiding obvious pregnancies behind flouncy tops and preposterously large handbags.
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Tony Sunday is a special day for theater queens, people whose dramatic interests center on venues with more than 500 seats located between Times Square and 65th Street, and thrill seekers who set their TiVo to record anything with the words awards and ceremony in the title. Unless you're an All That Chat natterer or take your evening cocktail in one of the fast-disappearing theater bars off Broadway, the Tonys are a three-hour wonder—the one place on the TV schedule where song and dance rules and Angela Lansbury and Liza Minelli are bigger than Brad and Angelina.
This year, though, the excitement started before the curtain went up on the day's matinees, as several fast-thumbed folks live-tweeted the morning's Tony rehearsal. Ugly Betty's Mark Indelicato: "So everyone. I can say that the opening number is EPIC. It shall be remembered forever by all those who love broadway." StageDoorOnline: "Angela Lansbury got an applause at the #Tony rehearsal for just crossing the stage during a comm. break. (It WAS a great cross though.)" And nominee Jane Fonda: "Liza gave me pointers on how to walk and not hurt. Pull up, tuck butt under, swing shoulders sexily, stand with legs apart to balance, etc."
Indelicato was right; the 10-minute opening number was epic. It started with the dude who sang at Princess Diana's funeral and eventually grew to include everyone in the 10020 ZIP code: the Jets; the Sharks; Dolly Parton; at least two West Wing cast members; a green ogre, a donkey, and a princess; the cast of Hair letting the sun shine in; and the members of Poison throwing around their hair. If only Liza had given Bret Michaels pointers on how to avoid the moving scenery, which knocked him flat on his back when he was slow off his mark.
The evening offered few surprises—the biggest being that the creators of Next to Normal, the story of a bipolar housewife, beat out Sir Elton John and Lee Hall of the heavily favored Billy Elliot, The Musical in the race for best score. Otherwise, Billy Elliot tapped and twirled its way to domination of the musical categories, and God of Carnage wreaked havoc over the awards for plays.
My big question was whether the Tony telecast could win back the title of gayest awards ceremony. After all, in the last couple of years the Oscars have featured more same-sex shout-outs and kisses than their Broadway counterparts. There were some missteps along the way; as when the TV cameras confused Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter, both nominated for leading actress in a play for their roles as Mary and Elizabeth in Mary Stuart. As Twitterer Kimberly_Kaye put it, "If Broadway can't keep track of queens, who can?"
True enough, Oscar Eustis of the Public Theater pointed to his (mixed-sex) wedding ring as he called for "equality now" while accepting Hair's award for best revival of a musical, but I didn't catch any winners thanking gay partners, and there was no equivalent of Dustin Lance Black's tear-jerking Oscar acceptance speech for Milk.
Still, it's impossible to out-gay the Tonys. An out emcee in Neil Patrick Harris; a win for Liza Minelli; a lifetime achievement award for Jerry Herman ... As Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman wrote in Harris' divine 11 o'clock number (let's see you replicate that at the Oscars, Hugh Jackman): "This show could not be gayer/ if Liza was named mayor/ and Elton John took flight."