Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: April 28, 2008
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: How I Met Your Mother, “The Goat” (Season 3, Episode 17). [Stream on Netflix.]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: How I Met Your Mother performed a tricky juggling act over the course of its run, and particularly in its early seasons, its success was one of the lowkey most impressive things on television. (Of course, the show got worse and worse at that juggling act as the series went along, but that’s a story for another paragraph.) Keeping a hangout sitcom running smoothly is difficult enough as it is, but HIMYM also had to keep up with a frame story that was constantly dropping hints about the series’ future. Because the entire series premise was based on an event kept tantalizingly out of the viewers’ reach, Future Ted’s narration would frequently drop in puzzle pieces about the bigger picture. Since they didn’t want to give away the farm re: the Mother, there had to be other clues in play. Blue French horns and yellow umbrellas became totems along the path. Other times, Future Ted would reference career paths for characters that hadn’t yet begun in the current storyline. Other times, of course, they’d drop hints about the goat.
The fricking goat.
The goat was first referenced in the first-season episode “Milk,” when Future Ted made reference to his 30th birthday party when a goat was trapped in his bathroom. At the time, it felt like a dumb throwaway aside, a way of having fun with Future Ted’s omniscience and how we remember the stories that we tell. But then, season three came along and Ted really was turning 30, and so we got “The Goat.” By this point in the series’ history, the continuity had become a major selling point, so loyal viewers saw the episode’s title and were excited to see this tantalizing string play out. There was only one problem with that.
So remember how I said the show got worse at the juggling act? “The Goat” was a pretty big harbinger of rough waters ahead. Not only did this episode begin with the morning-after reveal that Barney and Robin had sex, a pairing that would essentially alter the entire internal dimensions of the series, but it was also the episode where the show most overtly reveled in its tendency to pull the rug out from under its viewers. Because in an episode called “The Goat,” we actually never get the story of the goat. Future Ted is all “Psych! That actually happened on my 31st birthday,” and the audience was left hanging for another full season.
So when you talk about how disappointed you were by the series finale? You really should’ve known better.
[You can watch How I Met Your Mother‘s “The Goat” on Netflix.]
