How I Met Your Mother to do more stunt casting…
By fred | August 12, 2008
Because it worked so well last season, I guess. I mean, who didn’t love the amazing performances of Britney Spears, Mandy Moore and other Enrique Iglesias last season, right ? Right ? *sigh*
Seriously, this is a huge load of BS if you ask me. I am not opposed to stunt casting per-se, and I’m sure that when done well and not coming from some starving for attention celebrity or the network trying to get a few more viewers in regardless of whether or not it might actually hurt the show in the long run, it can turn out great.
For proof of that, just see last season’s appearances by the lovely Sarah Chalke ! Perfect in the role, delightful, hilarious, great chemistry with other cast members, starting with Josh Radnor (Ted), it was simply awesome.
But stunt casting is not what this show is about, and it shouldn’t try so hard to do it so much and so often. I can only echo the words of a great man, Neil Patrick Harris, also known as the awesome Barney Stinson, when he explained that he was worrying “that if they start Will And Grace-ing us too much, that the show will suffer. And we’re all really proud of the content of the show. (…) I just am a real fan of our content. I think we have a great show going, and I hope it’s not screwed up by the desire for 700,000 more viewers.”
I couldn’t have said it better. And let’s be honest, I know CSB’ President Nina Tassler loves it and wants to do more stunt casting, she already said so, but that’s just because she’s an idiot. Sure, that whole Britney episode brought 1 more million viewers to the show that one time, it was the most-watched episode of the season, it was “great”.
Or so it looked. But in reality, of this million more viewers, about none of them stuck around in the following weeks, this was a one-time thing only, to see how much of a train wreck she was, and I’m not saying it’s not great for a show to have such a much-watched episode, even as a one-time thing only, but it’s certainly a stupid thing to do if it actually hurts the show in the end. And given the poorly performance of Britney and how crappy that second episode she appeared in was, it really does hurt the show.
And it hurts the fans of the show, us, tuning in week after week to watch every episode. And if we start loosing faith in the show, if we start going away, there is absolutely no way this is a good thing for the show, and at the end of the day, you’ll whish you didn’t have had that stupid rating-bump but kept all the loyal viewers of the show for a few more years instead…
Now, I’m not saying I lost faith in the creators of this little gem, but I do worry. [!SPOILER ALERT!] And when I read that Regis Philbin has agreed to be How I Met Your Mother’s first (and I hope last) celebrity to guest star next season, I really don’t know how to feel…
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Shows: How I Met Your Mother
