Splitsider

Unpopular Opinions is a bi-weekly column in which a writer takes a stand against popular opinion, whether it's asserting the true merit of a supposedly guilty pleasure or dissenting against the universally lauded.

Earlier this year, after a hard-fought tournament, you decided that Community's "Remedial Chaos Theory" was the best sitcom episode ever. There is no way to say for sure with these things but maybe it's true; maybe when you zoom out completely, the dynamism and ambition of "Chaos" wins. However, in the context of this one season, I'd argue, and will argue for a bunch of words below, that "Chaos" loses out to another very ambitious episode, though more quietly so, How I Met Your Mother's "Ducky Tie", simply because the latter using its technique to best foster the story, not vice versa.

Community and How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) are both in some capacity about storytelling. For Community this means exploring the different ways to tell a story by looking at how they've historically been told in popular culture. In contrast, HIMYM, since the whole show is structured around a narrator relating the memories of his adulthood, is about the concept of storytelling itself. As a result, they are both at their best when they're pushing the limits of their storytelling devices in ways that allow for a more unique and deeper understanding of its characters. Both tried to do just that with their third episodes of this season "Remedial Chaos Theory" and "Ducky Tie", respectively (though "Chaos" had to be postponed so it aired fourth not third). However, where in "Ducky Tie" technique provided for a tonal balance that best allowed for character exploration, "Chaos" failed in its decision to prioritize its technique over everything else. READ MORE