Is HIMYM Trying Too Hard to Be Seinfeld?

As a show about people living in New York that coins the odd zeitgeist-friendly expression from time to time, How I Met Your Mother has always courted comparisons with Seinfeld. But with both of the major storylines from tonight's episode stemming directly from its 90s predecessor, has my favorite sitcom gone too far?

In Plot A, exes Ted and Robin start sleeping together as friends. Hey, didn't Jerry and Elaine try that too? They sure did, and it all ended very badly with Jerry giving Elaine money for her birthday. But HIMYM finds a nice twist to the set-up. Someone does get hurt, but it's not Ted or Robin. That would be Barney, who smashes expensive TVs and talks about it to a group of kindergarteners before Ted finds out his secret. That twist, along with Barney's general level of awesomeness, keeps this out of straight-out rip-off territory.

But as for Marshall's quest to sneak off to the bathroom at work, he might as well be shouting "yadda yadda yadda." The whole "reading a magazine" euphism was an unsubtle wink to "master of my domain" in Seinfeld's most famous episode. But, and I'm sorry guys, saying it fifty times in three minutes doesn't make it suddenly funny. Seinfeld needed its euphisms due to network censoring, which the audience knew. Here the humor of "reading a magazine" is "Euphisms are funny!" It does pay off when Barney says, "We're talking about masturbation, right?" going where Seinfeld couldn't. How far TV has come.

Oh, and as for those magazines, those reality star guest spots have been hyped up by gossip rags for months, yet were fairly forgettable within the episode. Boosting ratings with high-profile guest stars without letting it have any effect on the quality of the show? Way to go HIMYM writers, you are wise indeed.