I loved Britney in this, she made me laugh :man_shrugging_tone1:
I was never that much of a fan regarding Stella. Maybe it was because she was Ted's third big romantic relationship. Ted and Robin was the generic relationship whereas Ted and Victoria were actually a pretty decent couple.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2016-03-11T03:58:25Z
Despite my rating, I have some mixed feelings about this episode. So let's take the good and the bad.
Good: CBS hyped the heck out of a then-notably crazy Britney Spears appearing on the show. The episode, accordingly, got record ratings, and from that point on How I Met Your Mother turned the corner as a successful show that was no longer in perpetual danger of cancellation and could build toward the future.
Bad: Britney Spears cannot act worth a damn. It's not like her role was so well-written or anything, but she had an awkward delivery and added nothing to the episode itself. It's strange because she acquitted herself well enough on Saturday Night Live back in the day, but maybe she just didn't fit with a sitcom setting.
Good: Sarah Chalke is delightful. As Scrubs fans know, Chalke is a consumate pro, who knows how to be charming and likable and also carry some more emotional material in a comedy environment. There's a brightness and sense of fun to her as Stella, and it boosts the episode tremendously. The way she sells both her reasons for not dating Ted and how much her daughter and her career mean to her is great.
Bad: There's something mildly troubling about the entire "turning a no into a yes" motif. It feels generally fine here because we know that Stella does like Ted, there's just something holding her back. Still, there's the fact that whatever her reasons, she turned Ted down pretty unequivocally (as Robin amusingly points out), and the fact that he keeps pressuring her and trying to woo her despite that is a little uncomfortable, at least in principle, even if it works alright in the heightened reality of a sitcom. Plus he's pretty awful to Abby in the process.
Good: There's so many tremendous jokes with a delayed payoff here and gags that play with the nonlinear storytelling of the show. From Barney being the one who made Abby cry, to Marshall being the one who left the self-help book that prompted Ted to devote himself to it, to Lily rubbing Marshall's injured neck. There's some tightly-constructed humor and it really works.
Great: The 2-minute date. Again, there's something a bit uneasy about the whole idea, but damn if the 2-minute date is not an incredibly romantic gesture and one of the top moments of the show. It's Ted at his sweetest and most creative, and the little joking asides through the whole thing are remarkably endearing. If there's one thing that helps wash the sour taste of the "no becomes a yes" idea of my mouth, it's a payoff this inventive and with a great energy and real emotion to boot. A good finish goes a long way.