Comedy Finale Catch-Up

Of the three comedy finales I watched, How I Met Your Mother wins for finding the right balance of funny and season-ending satisfaction. In fact, that balance was best exemplified by Barney and Robin. Since their first hook-up last season, there's always been the danger the writers would cave in to shipper pressure and let that dominate the show. But between coining "The Mosby" as a way to lose someone's interest in 10 seconds and all the flip-flopping of feelings between them, it was funny, true to the characters, and had the result everyone wanted.

The goat was of course completely anticlimactic, after being hyped up since season 1 and especially in "The Goat" last season. Since Ted had already told most of the story, there wasn't too much more for it to do than...well...chew Robin's washclothes. Oh, and send Ted to the hospital for the second finale in a row. Frankly, there was enough else going on in this episode I'm glad the goat was allowed to do its part without stealing too much attention.

Attention from what? How about the biggest clue to the mother yet? Namely, that Ted's future wife is an architecture student in his class at Columbia (Ted going after one of his students? Barney must be involved in this somehow). So Ted met the mother because Tony got him the professor job, and THAT'S why his run-in with Stella was so important. All right, I'll accept that. And we got a nice twist to ponder heading into next year.


Moving on to The Office, a show that more and more is shooting for the warm fuzzies instead of the funny bone. The finale saw the very welcome return of Amy Ryan's Holly, who single-handedly kept the show moving through the first part of this season, and she continued to elevate Michael in every scene they shared. Their torture-filled, intel-dropping take-off on Slumdog Millionaire was certainly a high point for the episode, but their story was more about Michael's "soulmate" speech at the end. Still, gotta be relieved he didn't do any of the number of inappropriate things I was expecting throughout the episode.

The other couple playing cute was of course Jim and Pam, who got some special news at episode's end. I guess this was supposed to be the big end-of-season reveal, but was it really so shocking? This season has shown Jim and Pam go from one life cycle moment to the next. Getting engaged, buying a house, getting pregnant, it's all so...normal. We get that Jim and Pam are a happy, well-adjusted couple, and it's great that a show is finally showing that on TV. But do they have to prove the rule that normal couples are boring? Jim and Pam played the cute card way too many times this season. It's time they go back to being funny.

This was a step up from most of season 5's episodes, but I can't help noticing how poorly it holds up to finales in years past (not counting season 1, of course). Season 2 had Jim and Pam's first kiss, season 3 had Ryan get the corporate job, and season 4 had the introduction of Holly and Jim's botched proposal. After 5 seasons and 100 episodes, The Office is starting to run out of ideas. Maybe it should take some advice from its 12-episode-and-a-movie predecessor and bow out while the show's still good.

Unlike the other comedies on this post, 30 Rock has never tried for particularly ambitious finales. Now, I know that seems weird to say about a show that brought in Elaine Stritch as Jack's mom in season 1, saw Jack join the Bush administration with Matthew Broderick in season 2, and had half of the music industry guest star for season 3. But given the way 30 Rock spent its season, stunt casting is hardly anything unusual.

So I feel like this finale, which only addressed issues raised in the previous episode, should be judged not on finale standards but as any other 30 Rock episode would be. And in that respect, it did just fine. Love Alan Alda and his scenes with Jack. Already can't remember anything else about the episode. As for the "Kidney, Now" benefit song? I had hoped it would be funnier. So it was a fine end to a fine season, not living up to the highs of "el generalissimo" nor falling to the lows of Steve Martin's episode.