There seems to be some polarization among commenters regarding HIMYM's quality. For the record, I'm a bit of a sitcom junkie. I grew up on Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart (just about the only primetime television my parents let us watch, because my dad thought Bob was a hoot). I regard Newsradio as the pinnacle of twentieth-century comedic broadcasting, but I've developed in my dotage an appreciation for classics like The Honeymooners. And Must See TV was my natural home in the nineties — Mad About You. Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, et al.
2007 may not be the golden age for the traditional sitcom — the genre's taken some serious hits from the innovations of single-camera shows and from the AARP-demo shows cluttering the CBS and ABC schedules — but you gotta give it up for the shows that are still out there walking that beat as if they never read their pink slips. I'd include HIMYM and the egregiously-titled New Adventures of Old Christine in that category, the latter being a show that took half a season to find its voice but now provides reliable delights on a weekly basis. Or would, if CBS hadn't relegated it to a mid-season replacement.
All that said, "We're Not From Here" unfortunately represents a subpar location in the HIMYM franchise. The trouble is signalled early: ol' reliable bar-booth-opening is more plot setup than wowza funnies. Ep rebounds a bit with second bar-booth-opening after credits, but the use-big-words-to-confuse-Enrique-Iglesias joke is funnier in concept than execution. (Points to Ted for understated "I'm just happy that you're happy" variations on a theme, however.) And the titular plotline — Barney and Ted pretend to be out-of-towners in order to score NYC chicks — is laaaame. It brings out the elitist in Ted, which isn't really the character that shows him to best advantage. It requires Ted to give in way too easily to Barney's crazy scheme and to share Barney's hipper-than-thou worldview, which is hard to believe given past evidence.
But in the midst of this confusion, some precious stones glimmer. Let's talk about Robin. What has come over this character? The girl is funny! She's carrying her own scenes! Something about the tension between vacation-Robin, she of the hippy-dippy drum circles ("they're different every time!") and hot Hispanic bedmate, and "old Robin" with the job and the OCD, brings out her untapped potential. I don't believe I've ever looked forward to a Robin-centered scene before this episode, but here I was waiting for the script to dispose of Ted and Barney so I could watch Cobie do her thang. High point: the sharply-edited juxtaposition of things that were sexy on vacation (being fed pineapple by hand) yet not so sexy back in Brooklyn (being fed spaghetti by hand on an easily-stained sofa).