How I Met Your Mother Ending: 10 Past Faults It Must Avoid

3. Character Is Everything

When shows reach a certain age, the fear that most writers have is that they need to make the characters even more broad in order to keep up. Often, shows that run past five or six years fall into the trap of becoming absurdly cartoonish. HIMYM was not safe from that, and it turned many of the once loveable characters into either over the top goofballs or just plain annoying. For example, the character of Barney Stinson. He was a charismatic and likeable guy. Despite what we knew about him, the terrible things he'd done to achieve his goal of sleeping with over 200 women, we still loved him. But Barney's shift from charming ladies man to downright terrible human being is definitely not what I would want to see happen in the twilight years of this show. Certainly, Barney needs to grow and become a different person, but he doesn't. He never has. If you're saving Barney's miraculous change from nearly monstrous playboy to husband of the year for the end, it will only come off as a light switch, not organic character development. And Barney isn't the only character this happens to. Marshall is now just an incoherent goof who constantly yells, Lily is shrill and obnoxious, not to mention a terrible wife and mother, Robin and Barney are candidates for worst human beings of the year and Ted, well, Ted doesn't get to do much anymore, so it's hard to say what he is. Through no fault of the actors involved, who are all wonderful, these once-proud television characters are simply lost in the constant drivel of a final season that is more interested in ship-baiting and silly guest star appearances. Change this. Pronto.