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How I Met Your Mother: The Complete Season 5
R1 - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (28th December 2010). |
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The Show
 To anchor a television drama, comedy, or even morning news show all you need is a dominant, likable personality to bring the viewer in and keep everyone engaged. Even shows that support ensemble groups, it’s about creating the types of characters that bring people into the show, but that are backed up by actor who people are interested in watching. For “How I Met Your Mother” (2005-Present), everything is rooted in the talent and personality of Neil Patrick Harris. Granted the supporting cast is nothing to frown at, some solid talent from Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel, but really this is the NPH show and everyone else just acts in it. In the fifth season, the plot of the show still is grounded in a mystery of who the future wife and babymomma of Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) will eventually be, though in this season the hints about the identity of the mother seem closest in Bob Saget’s narration as future Ted Mosby dropping clues in the season. But really, this show is all about Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) a sex crazed womanizer who is determined to sleep with a woman of every profession, national origin, race and a variety of other categories he likes to keep track of, as he struts around in suits and gives at times nonsensical advice about romance and relationships. The fifth season centers again on the friendships of Ted, Barney, Robin (Cobie Smulders), Lily (Hannigan) and Marshall (Segel) as they embark in different romantic relationships, sometimes even with each other. Rooted more in the traditional sitcom, based in a group of friends, a meeting social location and different romantic situations with vauge tinges of drama, “How I Met Your Mother” does a fair job of exploring well mapped terrain without becoming too stale, but that’s mostly thanks to the casting job they’ve done. The characters themselves are well enough put together, with different eccentricities to keep the show moving and make them likable in different ways, like Barney’s womanizing mixed with insecurities and suits, or Lily and Marshall’s odd marriage. It’s a different experience watching “How I Met Your Mother” as compared to the more popular comedies of late like “The Office” (2005-Present) that are filmed like documentaries or comedies filmed more like dramas in the case of “Modern Family” (2009-Present) or “30 Rock” (2006-Present). Each comedic style of presentation has advantages and disadvantages, but really what the traditional sitcom format of “How I Met Your Mother” works excluding the mind numbing, excruciating laugh track that is thrown into the show. Why the show deems it necessary to throw in laughter for a show that has funny moments and doesn’t need promting. The funny moments aren’t too few and far between, as NPH and his character Barney form the comedic glue of the show and the other elements are good enough to keep around. If you can get past the laugh track it’s actually a nice comedy, though the involvement of Bob Saget will always remain a mystery. The comedy of the show is mostly situational, but involves heavy use of flashbacks to their earlier relationships (and the show itself in some ways is a flashback), with some fantasy sequences that seem to have become a staple of television comedies. Overall, it’s a show that I wouldn’t ordinarily have given a second look based on it’s CBS profile and the channel’s history of sitcoms that are far from funny, but really with the way that NPH dominates the show it’s an entertaining watch. The supporting cast keeps things interesting and the idea of the search for the main character’s future wife is nice enough, but these are just additional flavorings to the main content of the show that can get you watching and get some laughs in along the way. Episodes in this season are: - “Definitions” - “Double Date” - “Robin 101” - “The Sexless Innkeeper” - “Duel Citizenship” - “Bagpipes” - “The Roughpatch” - “The Playbook” - “Slapsgiving 2: Revenge of the Slap” - “Last Cigarette Ever” - “The Window” - “Girls vs. Suits” - “Jenkins” - “The Perfect Week” - “Rabbit or Duck” - “Hooked” - “Of Course” - “Say Cheese” - “Zoo or False” - “Home Wreckers” - “Twin Beds” - “Robots vs. Wrestlers” - “The Wedding Bride” - “Doppelgangers”
Video
Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, the show has the glossified kind of sitcom feel that you requently see on CBS where the colors are brighter and more artificially lit from being filmed in the studio so much. Still the clarity of the footage could use a few upgrades in terms of the color resolution and the contrast, it can get a little unclear at times, but it’s still a clean looking transfer with the occasional smattering of digital artifacts.
Audio
What immediately stands out in the English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio transfer is the laugh track, something I thought had vanished from comedies a few years back but apparently is still going strong on CBS, and it definitely gets in the way of the comedy. Everytime a joke misfires there’s a laugh track to make you angry. The rest of the audio however sounds like a sitcom and works in the way it’s produced, putting in the sounds for comedic effect or the different noises to make the scene work, all balanced fine and leveled off, but getting rid of the laugh track alone would be a huge improvement. There are also English, French, Mandarin and Spanish subtitles.
Extras
On the three disc set there’s a collection of special features including audio commentaries on selected episodes, bloopers, music videos, a couple of featurettes and bonus trailers. DISC ONE: The only audio commentary on the disc is on the episode “Duel Citizenship” with actress Cobie Smulders and writer Chuck Tatham. They talk about their Canadian citizenships, gaining U.S. citizenship as Canadians and other general tangents, related to the episode or at least whats being shown on screen, with a few behind the scenes stories thrown in. On the plus side it helps to make the commentary go fairly quickly and they keep the rhythm without having to take pauses. bonus trailers on this disc are: - “TV on DVD" spot runs for 1 minute and 30 seconds. - “The League on Blu-ray and DVD” runs for 28 seconds. - “Modern Family on Blu-ray and DVD” runs for 2 minutes and 45 seconds. - “Glee: The Complete First Season” runs for 49 seconds. DISC TWO: This disc has audio commentaries on two episodes, described below: “Girls vs. Suits” is with creator Craig Thomas, director Pam Fryman and actor Neil Patrick Harris speaking on the hundredth episode of the show, this commentary is less tangential and more directly rooted to every scene of the show and talking up how they did upcoming scenes. Harris does a good job of pushing the commentary through and adding in the jokes, while keeping it relevant to the behind-the_scenes work of the show. “The Perfect Week” is with writers Craig Gerard, Matthew Zinman and Joe Kelly who talk mostly about the writing process and putting the show together, but really mostly remarking over the jokes they have written for the episode and having a few jokes between them thrown in. It doesn’t match the previous NPH commentary, but they do a good job of keeping things running and not letting the conversation die down. DISC THREE: First up on this disc is the blooper reel, which runs for 8 minutes and 57 seconds, and actually turns out to be funny considering that it goes beyond the regular laugh track of the show and you get to see the actors go a bit farther in the different scenes, the only laughter that you hear is some background on set laughter. Only the final couple of mintutes are more blooper reel fodder of quick and random shots of funny moments from the sohow set to a musical montage, but otherwise it’s actually funny. Next up are three music videos, which are really just the clips of musical sequences from the show from different episodes throughout the season: - “Superdate” runs for 2 minutes and 21 seconds. - “Nothing Suits Me Like A Suit” runs for 3 minutes and 3 seconds. - “Best Night Ever” runs for 1 minute and 38 seconds. “Making of Superdate” featurette runs for 2 minutes and 29 seconds, it’s exactly as presented, a behind-the-scenes look at the superdate sequence as you see the final take as they wheel in and out the different pieces of the superdate sequence so you see how the long onetake scene was filmed. Nice little featurette on a well put together sequence. “Wedding Bride Trailer – Extended Version” runs for 2 minutes and 6 seconds, the extended version of the fake trailer from the show. “Behind-the-Scenes of the 100th Episode” runs for 8 minutes and 37 seconds, this featurette looks at the large production of the “Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit Sequence” from recording session for the song itself, the table recording, meeting Tim Gunn and how excited NPH is to meet Tim Gunn. It’s almost entirely behind the scenes footage without any interviews or anything to push or connect the different behind the scenes looks other than titlecards. Finally is the "Series Recap" clip, which runs for 2 minutes and 41 seconds, it’s a montage of scenes from the season set to a song supposed to be sung by the children of the show about all the ridiculous occurrences from the season and the show.
Packaging
The set comes in a 3-disc, standard sized keep case.
Overall
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