Fall TV Friday – 2005 – How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother – CBS – 5 Seasons – USA

I thought I’d kick this 2005 Fall TV season off with one of my favourite shows of all time: The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a hold of a copy in time for this review so instead I’ll be looking at what I guess can stand in as one of my favourite shows of all time: How I Met Your Mother.

I’m of the belief that there are only two types of people when it comes to How I Met Your Mother. Those who love How I Met Your Mother; and those who haven’t seen enough of How I Met Your Mother. When HIMYM came along in the fall of 2005 I, like many others, wondered why Willow, Neil Patrick Harris and Nick from Freaks & Geeks were teaming up for an awkwardly titled comedy from the same network that brought the world Two & A Half Men.

How I Met Your Mother begins in the year 2030 where Ted Mosby (voiced by Bob Saget) is telling his kids the story of how he met their mother. The story goes that 2005 Ted Mosby (Josh Radner) is a single lad in New York city who lives with his best friend Marshal (Jason Segal), and goes out on the town with his “real best friend” Barney (the always incredibly awesome and amazing and downright fantastic Neil Patrick Harris). Marshal has just popped the question to his long time girlfriend Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and because they’re engaged Ted is starting to get all antsy about his own future. And that’s when he meets Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) who we quickly learn is most certainly not the mother of the series title.

Straight out of the gate Neil Patrick Harris has the perfect angle on Barney and delivers lines like “Lebonese girls are the new half Asians” with such aplomb that it makes we want to write words like ‘aplomb’. While the early success of HIMYM can be attributed to NPH and Barney’s wacky antics, its ongoing success has to be attributed to the dynamic the writers and the cast manage to create between these five friends. There are signs even in the pilot that this gang will become the TV friends you most want to hang out with in real life.

As much as NPH nails Barney, Jason Segal and Alyson Hannigan don’t quite have a handle on how to play Marshal & Lily just yet. They both seem to be playing their characters as a lot cooler than the goofy losers we know them to be. Cobie Smulders, who’s so brilliant in the later seasons, really doesn’t have much to do as Robin early on other than to react to Ted’s advances. There isn’t even a hint that Robin will morph into the mental hockey loving Cannock that we know and love. Ted on the other hand is as he always is; a dumb arse romantic.

On top of the very first ‘suit up’ the pilot dishes up a series of story devices that would become beloved How I Met Your Mother staples. There are flashbacks, split screen, laser tag, the “theories” such as ‘the olive theory’, and those always important lists seen here in the form of Marshal listing ‘how Ted describes his perfect woman’ as we flashback to Robin’s answers.

-          She likes dogs? “I’ve got five dogs.”

-          She drinks scotch? “I love a scotch that’s old enough to order its own scotch.”

-          She can quote obscure lines from Ghostbusters? “Ray! If someone asks you if you’re a god you say yes!”

The presentation of that list alone tells you everything you need to know about How I Met Your Mother. To begin with it plays with the conventional structure of the sitcom by cutting to Robin’s answers to questions being asked in a conversation between Marshal and Ted. Secondly, the writing includes lines like “a scotch that’s old enough to order its own scotch.” Thirdly, there are Ghostbusters references for crying out loud, but most importantly it’s a list about Ted’s perfect woman because at heart HIMYM is a romantic comedy.

Not only is How I Met Your Mother one of only five shows to have survived since the fall of 2005 but it’s the only comedy to have made it this far. HIMYM is the sort of show that grows with every episode. A show that twists jokes and references from the early episodes into episodes several seasons later. That lame goatee Ted sports in a brief flashback in the pilot might have been forgotten on a lesser show, but there it is every time we flashback to ‘pretentious Ted’.  How I Met Your Mother rewards its audience, and that devoted audience is the biggest reason for its survival.

Over the years HIMYM has grown from likeable sitcom with that super funny Barney character to the funniest show on television (take that 30 Rock, you Salma Hayek cameoing shark jumper!). The theory goes that a pilot works best when it shows you exactly what a regular episode of that series would look like, as a side rule it also has to be half way good. To that end of things the pilot of How I Met Your Mother presents a fairly amusing first episode that has enough laughs to encourage you back for a second, and then a third, and then YOU JUST CAN’T STOP.

I can’t think of a single comedy on television that loves its characters and its audience this much. If you don’t like How I Met Your Mother, or if you think it’s just another lame American sitcom then you’re wrong. After this pilot you could be forgiven for thinking that the series might devolve down a path of “so you chickened out like a little bitch!” zingers but this first episode is nowhere near the best episode of HIMYM. It’s not a bad episode but it wouldn’t even crack the top 20.

If you’ve never seen How I Met Your Mother I can’t recommend it highly enough, the first season powers along well enough but then everything gets kicked up a notch in the second season. For those who have seen enough of the show to know how good it is may I just say let’s go to the mall, and remember to… wait for it… suit up!

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Good… okay it’s an Alright first episode bumped up to a Good because it’s my blog and any How I Met Your Mother is always Good.