"I say old man, those pirates are getting awfully restless. And that ruddy crocodile is ticking again, I've a good mind to bag it tomorrow for the drawing room wall. Should be good sport, what? Another spot of port, Cyril? Damned glad we brought the '86."

I also liked, "we're having a moment, YOU MONSTER".

holy fuck that was amazing. How can you say it wasn’t that funny? I laughed constantly. 40 minutes of great jokes, Cones of Dunshire, a great setup for the next series, and The Decemberists. A++++++++++

I feel that Linehan had too much control over The IT Crowd. Episodes like this, where the ideas are good but theres something lacking in the execution, make me think it could have been better with some other writers brought in. Or even a different director for some episodes would help. It has the plot/pacing problems…

I agree. Probably though if I watched it again in a state of less anxious excitement it would seem fine.

MASH is weird though, because they'll do one of their serious episodes in almost complete silence, and then suddenly the audience will laugh properly for the first time about 15 minutes in. I find it quite jarring.

I've always been a bit squicked out by an 8 year old having love interests (and the longer the show goes on the more crushes/boyfriends she has and the weirder it gets). I wish they'd made them older to start with.

'Whenever somebody tries to do an American accent on a British show, it is horrible.' Does that happen often? I can't think of a single example of an American character played by a British actor in a British show. What are you thinking of?

McQueen's British, not Irish. He's from London.

But several times they say things like 'when are you going to get to the part about Mom?' Which kind of makes sense.

'I think at the scene where they tell this story, in 2024, the mother is indeed diagnosed with a terminal illness, but not dead yet. I don't believe Ted is sitting there alone.' I haven't seen anyone suggest that? The idea is she dies sometime between this scene (where she knows she's ill) and 2030, when Ted is…

It does. It says 'the year 2020' in a subtitle and there are banners saying 'class of 2000'. There are also lots of references elsewhere to them having left school and started college in 1996 (eg in Best Prom Ever).

Weekend at Barney's 2!

The problem I have with 2 is that I can't imagine Ted acting that way if she just had a cancer diagnosis but not a terminal one. Plenty of people recover from breast cancer. He'd be trying to stay upbeat for *her* if it was in early stages, not the other way round (I mean, if we know one thing about Ted it's that he's…

But Ted says Robin never have kids. I've seen lots of people suggest she could adopt, but it's pretty dickish to describe someone who adopts as 'never having had children'. I can't imagine Ted in particular as someone who would think that way.

Maybe Future Ted just didn't want to depress Present Ted further? 'You DO get married! But she carks it pretty soon after… But the positive, you get married!'. (Your comment is the most convincing argument against I've seen, though.)

But for that to make sense as an explanation for this scene he'd have to have found out that Robin is dying in 2024, then about six years later she dies, and somehow his kids never knew she was dying? That doesn't seem very likely. And if they did know they're being callous about stories about his terminally ill…

Final title card: 'Note: Barney died on the way back to his home planet'.

No? Why would it be? It means a scruffy man or boy.

In 2030 they can get Josh Radnor back for the spinoff 'How I Met My Second Wife'.