MARCH APRIL 2014 2014
ENTERTAINMENT ENTERTAINMENT II 1313
D A E R ’T N D I D Y E H T WHAT SKIPPED IN ENGLISH TEACHERS REVEAL WHAT BOOKS THEY
‘HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER’ SERIES FINALE DISAPPOINTS
HIGH SCHOOL.
BY SAM MEDVED
BY DANIELLE KULLMANN “I TOOK A CLASS ON SHAKESPEARE THINKING WE WOULD GET TO READ ‘HAMLET’ BUT WE WERE ASSIGNED SO MANY SONNETS.”
“I DON’T REALLY REMEMBER READING IN HIGH SCHOOL-I DON’T KNOW IF THAT’S BECAUSE I DIDN’T READ A LOT OR WE DIDN’T HAVE A LOT ASSIGNED.”
MR. KOWAL
MRS. PAINTER
“MY TEACHER WANTED ME TO READ ‘THE ILLIAD’ AND ‘THE ODYSSEY.’ WHEN I HAD HER SHE DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO TEACH THE ODYSSEY TO A BOY FROM THE HOOD.”
MR. HARDING
MRS. CUSMANO
MRS. SATTERTHWAITE
“I ACTUALLY HAVEN’T PRETENDED TO READ BOOKS SINCE MIDDLE SCHOOL, BUT IN 8TH GRADE, I READ THE FIRST CHAPTER OF ‘2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY’ AND HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
MR. CPUZKINSKI
THE TALON
MS. BURKE
“THIS GUY JUST KEEPS ON WALKING AROUND AND DOING STUFF. 700 PAGES ... I QUIT HALFWAY THROUGH.”
“READ THE FIRST FEW PAGES OF ‘ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST,’ BUT I ENJOYED THE MOVIE WAY MORE THAN THE BOOK.”
MR. MIESCH
“I STILL TO THIS DAY HAVEN’T READ IT.”
MRS. KUSLITS
“I’M NOT A NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE FAN. I READ CHUNKS OF IT, BUT I REALLY HATED IT.”
MS. WOOD
“I JUST DIDN’T LIKE IT; IT WAS A LITTLE TOO WEIRD FOR ME. I LOVE MORRISON’S WRITING NOW, BUT IN HIGH SCHOOL I JUST WASN’T READY.”
“HERMAN MELVILLE’S ‘BILLY BUDD’ LOST ME DUE TO SENIORITIS.”
An era of television ended on March 31 when the CBS series “How I Met Your Mother” aired its final episode. The show spanned for nine seasons, featuring quite possibly the longest father-children conversation known to man. The series follows Ted Mosby and his group of friends in Manhattan as he relays the story of how he met his wife to his daughter and son. The entire point of the finale episode was to bring the show back to its main point: how Ted met the mother. In this regard the writers didn’t disappoint. In fact, the mother, Tracy, is absolutely perfect for Ted. She is compassionate, genuinely good and overall everything Ted was looking for throughout the show. Obviously the writers weren’t going to leave out such a major aspect of the plot, but they didn’t have to make her such a delightful character. Although Tracy is absolutely wonderful, she is probably the only decent thing about the episode. One of the major flaws within the show was that it took a lot of hopping around to get from where the episode began to how it would wind up. The hasty hopping resulted in a huge chunk of story being omitted in order to reach the point when Ted is granted “a second shot at happiness” through his children. The fatal flaw of the finale, is that the writers completely destroy the entire point of the show as the episode progresses. In a show entitled “How I Met Your Mother” it can easily be assumed that the show would focus on how Ted met the mother of his children. Instead, they killed off the mother as soon as possible and replaced her with Ted’s ex-girlfriend, Robin. Now this wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the writers hadn’t spent nine seasons explaining exactly why a romantic relationship between Ted and Robin simply wouldn’t have worked. While the series wasn’t entirely ruined by the episode, it was extremely disappointing to watch nine years of character development and plot progression be muddled as a result of lazy writing.
MR. GOLLON
“I GOT INTO A 100 PAGES OF THAT, BUT THAT IS A LONG BOOK ABOUT A WHALE AND SYMBOLISM ... I COULD NOT GET THROUGH IT.”
“WE HAD A BOOK ON JUST GRAMMAR IN MY 9TH GRADE HONORS ENGLISH, SO I WOULD JUST COUNT IN MY HEAD TO 40 OR SOMETHING, THEN I WOULD TURN THE PAGE.”
“‘AS I LAY DYING’ IN MY SENIOR YEAR WITH MR. LAWSON.”
MRS. SCHREMS
MR. GUYOR
DESIGN BY SAM MEDVED