The fallout from the writers strike is becoming apparent as the TV season wraps. It’s always tough to pen a good finale, but when writers have to cram a lot of plot movement, character development and relationship progress into a short amount of time, things can get messy or abrupt.
Certainly Ted (Josh Radnor) and Stella’s romance on “How I Met Your Mother” could have used more time to percolate. And Ted’s breakup with Stella (Sarah Chalke) in the finale didn’t have much of an impact, partly because it came out of nowhere. More importantly, the breakup and Ted’s subsequent proposal were weakened by the fact that Ted and Stella haven’t been a couple for long.
Speaking of the proposal, executive producer Craig Thomas said recently that Stella’s response to the proposal, which won’t be seen until fall, was shot two ways, and that the producers don’t know which version they’ll use.
I’m on the fence. I like Chalke but think the Ted-Stella romance has not developed in a truly satisfactory way. Perhaps that’ll change next season.
By the way, it’s clear from the finale that Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) has feelings for Robin (Cobie Smulders). At this stage, I’m more interested in seeing where that relationship goes than in what happens with Ted and Stella.
‘Brothers & Sisters’
I fell behind on watching “Brothers & Sisters” after the strike ended, and when various people asked me what I thought of the whole Rebecca-Justin kerfuffle, I had no answer.
I have an answer now. My take: I don’t mind the de-Walkering of Rebecca, who’d arrived on the scene as William Walker’s secret illegitimate daughter.
Sure, her suddenly not being a Walker is a soapy stretch, but “B&S” is a soap, albeit a literate, well-made one. It’s obvious that the actors who play Justin and Rebecca, Dave Annable and Emily VanCamp, have good chemistry on-screen and probably work better as a couple than as half-siblings.
If there had been more time to set up Rebecca’s status as a non-Walker (which was confirmed by a DNA test), that may have alleviated some of the negative reactions to the pairing, which, let’s face it, had the yucky whiff of incest for a while. But the strike forced a lot of shows to speed up certain plots, and given the time constraints, I thought the Rebecca-Justin story was handled as well as could be expected. Besides, these two talented actors made even this tough material work.
The weak link these days is the story line involving Kitty Walker’s (Calista Flockhart) attempts to get pregnant. She and her husband seem to be sealed off in a different world, and I don’t much care about how their baby situation works out. Isn’t it funny that, in some ways, “B&S” was billed as Flockhart’s return to TV, but that’s the part I’m least interested in?
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