ALYSON HANNIGAN: HIMYM
How I Met Your Mother has finally turned up on British TV, and its... well, disappointing. The problem is that Alyson has a natural talent for comedy - she's got the timing, she has a way of delivering a double entendre that doubles the original double, and the scene of her hanging around in a bar desperately trying to get picked up was perfect.
The trouble is, of course, the rest of the show doesn't match up. There are ideas there that really work - the concept of taking bags, leaving them on a carousel at an airport and using them to pick up girls is a neat one; the plotline that this would then lead into Department of Homeland Security style complications is pleasing. But the execution is just too poor.
We're constantly told how the US style of team-writing comedy is the model to follow - lots of eyes cast over the script, each joke given a workout by so many hands it's as buff as a beach volleyball player by the time it reaches the screen.
HIMYM, though, shows the pitfalls of that approach - rather than getting a workout from so many writers, it's like each comedic moment has been given a dressing down by a boatload of comedy mothers-in-law, and far from being buff, what reaches the screen has had its spirit broken. You can see that four or five rewrites ago, there might have been a really funny show there. Instead, you get a show sitting around on its sofa eating Doritos.
See also, of course: Date Movie
alyson+hannigan how i met your mother date movie
The trouble is, of course, the rest of the show doesn't match up. There are ideas there that really work - the concept of taking bags, leaving them on a carousel at an airport and using them to pick up girls is a neat one; the plotline that this would then lead into Department of Homeland Security style complications is pleasing. But the execution is just too poor.
We're constantly told how the US style of team-writing comedy is the model to follow - lots of eyes cast over the script, each joke given a workout by so many hands it's as buff as a beach volleyball player by the time it reaches the screen.
HIMYM, though, shows the pitfalls of that approach - rather than getting a workout from so many writers, it's like each comedic moment has been given a dressing down by a boatload of comedy mothers-in-law, and far from being buff, what reaches the screen has had its spirit broken. You can see that four or five rewrites ago, there might have been a really funny show there. Instead, you get a show sitting around on its sofa eating Doritos.
See also, of course: Date Movie
alyson+hannigan how i met your mother date movie
posted by Simon Hayes Budgen at 4:22 AM
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