Watch It! on Monday, Nov. 26, 2007
Legen — wait for it! — dary. On “How I Met Your Mother” (7 p.m. CBS/KWTV-9), Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) blanks out on all his myriad come-ons just before being invited to a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show after-party. Few modern sit-coms are this successful at creating their own internal culture, or are as creative at deploying it. To say that “Mother” is better than the structurally similar “Friends” was at its prime would be to damn it with faint praise, but this show’s cast has genuine chemistry. And yes, it’s a traditional four-camera studio show, but it’s all in the writing and performance.
Save the Cheerleader, Save the Show — One of the few series that acknowledges and accepts that the Writer’s Guild strike is truncating the 2007-08 season, “Heroes” (8 p.m. NBC/KFOR-4) is down to its final two episodes. These will supposedly wrap up the current storyline (admittedly a lukewarm one that has only heated up in recent installments) and set things up for next season. I’m getting antsy — I mean, I support the writers’ need to receive royalties for home video (they were fools to give this up back in the late-’80s negotiation), but I don’t support the return of “American Gladiators” to fill the void left by a short “Heroes” season. Get ready for spandex!
Don’t Stop Believin’ — “Journeyman” (9 p.m. NBC/KFOR), which is not a reality show about Steve Perry and his high-pitched warbling brood (but might be in a few weeks), continues a storyline from last week about a white-collar kidnapper who gets nabbed thanks to Dan Vasser’s continual flouting of the space-time continuum. As I’ve written before, this is not “Quantum Leap” — the show works best because stars Kevin McKidd (“Rome”) and Gretchen Egolf click exceptionally well and the show explores the tough ramifications of being pulled out of your life at random moments. Also, McKidd and Reed Diamond (“Homicide: Life on the Streets”) play two of the most convincing brothers you’ll see on network television.
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Have you seen the poster for Harold and Kumar 2? One depicts Neil Patrick Harris riding a unicorn, with the caption “What would NPH do?”
Indeed.