It's that time of year again, guys. That wonderful, magical time when all of our wishes come true and we can't help but walk around with smiles on our faces. Nope, I'm not talking about Christmas. I'm not even talking about Halloween. I'm talking about a little phenomenon that we in the obsessed-with-television circles like to refer to as May sweeps. And though May sweeps have become inexplicably shortened as well as less and less hyped over the past couple of years, it's still a pretty safe bet that our favorite shows will use their last few episodes of the season to really try and impress us.
This season has been an odd one with regard to scheduling shuffles, especially over at NBC Thursday (still a little bitter about that one), and so a few favorites have already retired for 2012 (such as Up All Night and Happy Endings), while some (Community, Cougar Town), appear to be running a little behind, and thus will have to cram a whole lot of material into just a few weeks. As of right now, it looks like most shows will end their runs by the second week in May, which allows them just enough time to throw some game-changers our way.
I've got some thoughts on the shows I regularly review on this blog, but also on some others that I don't spend a lot of time on here. Most of them promise at least a little excitement in their final episodes, while others are only proving why they're perhaps overdue for retirement (lookin' at you, The Office).
Let's get started, shall we?
How I Met Your Mother
The two primary plots for this season's finale have long been known, basically since the season premiere: Lily's going to have her baby, and Barney's bride will be revealed to the audience. How we will get there almost doesn't matter at this point,with only one more stand-alone episode left before the two-part finale airs. All the pieces are essentially in place, particularly concerning Barney--we already have him in a serious relationship (with the increasingly boring Quinn, and we all know what it means when a love interest starts to lose her initial appeal on this show), and thinking in terms of commitment, even discussing marriage in a recent episode.
Is it just me, or does anybody else smell a bit of a red herring? Barney has been thrown into this romance so quickly and is already in so deep it seems almost too easy to reveal him getting married to Quinn in the season finale. In contrast, the writers have reduced his interactions with Robin (come on, you should've known that was where I was headed with this) to almost nothing, despite the fact that they seemed on relatively good terms following their November sweeps backslide. I think we're being set up for a fake-out in the finale, perhaps with Barney proposing to Quinn in the present timeline, but revealing Robin as his bride in the vague future. For me this is further evidenced by the recent confirmation of a timeline we received in "Trilogy Time," with Ted showing up with his baby. If he has a months-old child in three years' time and is married, we've got a finite space in which to fit him meeting the mother (which happens at Barney's wedding). Add that to the fact that next year is looking like it'll be the show's final season (at least, I certainly hope it will be), and all signs point to a concrete indication of whether Barney and Robin are endgame for this show. I could say much more about why I believe this to be the case, but I won't bore you--just keep in mind that (not to sound too smug...) I predicted the Barney-as-groom reveal in last year's finale months in advance.
Community
One thing I've learned about this show is that it never quite fits the mold, and that goes double (maybe triple) come sweeps time. Oh sure, the final few episodes will be intriguing, hilarious, and perhaps even full of surprises, but all of those feats will be achieved on the show's own terms. There have been a few rumors here and there of what's coming, namely this week's episode (not technically in May but close enough), where we'll see a nod to the nearly omnipresent NBC drama Law & Order, and sources confirm that there's going to be a death at Greendale (well, maybe not on campus per se, but a death that will impact our favorite study group nonetheless)! Who will it be? Nobody's saying--or even hinting-- just yet, but the smart money is on a more outlying character, although at this point there's a significant part of me (and many fans, I think), that would love for the deceased to be one Pierce Hawthorne. The show has spent a lot of time on his fear of death and the confrontation of his mortality that it wouldn't be entirely out of left field, but still, it may be too grim for a season that has already had some very serious moments.
The Office
I could spend this portion of the entry talking about the recent teasers concerning some sort of season finale cliffhanger that the creative team is desperately leaking to the public, but rather than waste energy on that, let's face the sad facts: This show has become the television equivalent of the horse that just needs to be shot and put out of its misery already. I'm not saying there haven't been a few gems this season, or that the characters who have always been funny (mostly Dwight) have suddenly failed to make us laugh, but on the whole the creativity seems to have collapsed in on itself this season in Michael's absence. As for loose ends, there are literally none left, unless you count the convoluted, half-forgotten twist of Dwight potentially being Angela's baby-daddy (and are there people out there who are legitimately invested in confirming that?). Andy and Erin have been put back together; Jim and Pam have their happy little family; the leadership of the office has been outsourced to two recurring characters I just can't muster any caring for; and even Kelly and Ryan have (maybe) ended their long, needlessly tortured relationship.
Add to this the cocktail of changes happening outside of the show. John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer have both flirted with the idea of going part-time next season. Mindy Kaling is getting her own show. Paul Lieberstein (Toby, also one of the writers) is headed out the door. Dwight is possibly getting a spinoff? Ellie Kemper and Ed Helms seem poised for increasingly successful film careers. And Steve Carrell is just never coming back to save the rest of them. I'm sorry, but this show just can't run on Stanley, Phyllis, Angela, and whoever else might be left to deal with James Spader (oh wait, he's leaving too, apparently). Shut it down.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll talk about some Thursday night favorites (including reigning champion Parks and Rec) as well as the most overrated freshman show of the season.
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