For Christmas, Megan and I received, as requested, the first season of How I Met Your Mother on DVD (actually we received two copies, but that's neither here nor there). We've burned through the season in under a week and, as everybody who recommended it to us predicted, we love it.I do however have one nit to pick and a question to go with.
(Ok, more like one and a half nits: I don't love Josh Radnor and find him a bit annoying and condescending, particularly early on, but he seems to improve with each episode, so I'm assuming this upwards momentum will continue and I'll dig him by mid-season two at latest)
The one criticism I have of the show and only thing that irks me a bit about it is how they shoot reactions to jokes. Every time a principal character tells a one-liner, the camera immediately cuts to another character smiling or chuckling. Now I could be wrong, because I haven't really watched sitcoms in forever, but I seem to recall this not generally being how it was done. I recall the camera staying on the person who told the joke, as they sell it, and the laugh track doing the rest. I would assume HIMYM does it the way they do it for "realism," since in "reality" people would react to a joke being told, but in real reality, if a joke is funny, people laugh at it for a decent while, not just the two seconds it takes for a reaction shot.
Is this the way jokes are shot on most sitcoms and I'm just not savvy though? Let me know.
Also, it's an extremely small problem with a very great show. See for yourself.
