Comedy Series Review: How I met your Mother

Ted and Barney, the show's best character

A father telling his children the story about how he met their mother. How exactly does this turn into a 9 season show with over 200 episodes? By being bloody brilliant, that's how.

This series follows Ted Mosby, an architect who tells the story to his two children in the year 2030. Because he is telling the story in the future, the episodes showing the story are set in the year of airing. This is an interesting choice, since major real-life events will have to be incorporated into the series in some way and can not simply be omitted.

Ted lives with his best friend Marshall Eriksen and later also with Marshall's fiancée Lily Aldrin. Ted's self-proclaimed 'best friend and bro' Barney Stinson constantly tries to hook him up with girls. Barney himself is a real ladies man, having slept with over 200 women and authoring a 'Playbook' with trics and stories to get girls to sleep with him. These can be anything from pretending to be a famous and/or rich person, or working a girl's daddy issues. He has a near-obsessive love for his suits, on one occasion grieving over the loss of one of his suits as if it were a family member.

There are quite a few running gags in the series, including Barney's occupation. When he's asked what he does for a living he invariably answers “Ah, please...”. In the last season (SPOILER ALERT) he reveals his job is to P.L.E.A.S.E. (Provide Legal Exculpation And Sign Everything) and as such being a fall guy for the company's wrongdoings. He has however been conspiring with the government in a long-term scheme to take revenge on his boss for stealing his girlfriend prior to the series (/spoiler).

In the first few episodes Ted meets Robin Scherbatsky, a local news anchor, whom he sometimes refers to as 'aunt Robin'. She's a news anchor and Ted dates her for a while. They even plan on moving in together but this doesn't work as Ted isn't willing to part with his belongings (which were mostly given to him by his ex-girlfriends). Ted continues to tell his children exactly who he has dated previously to their mother and goes into inappropriate detail in regards to his premarital sex-life.

The series as a whole has some traits in common with Friends and has been compared to it as well. The main difference is there is no Ross-and-Rachel-like relationship in this series. Also the setting and comedy have been updated and include more modern technology. Over the years the season has gathered a solid following and remains popular. Reruns are currently aired by different stations and the series can be found on services like Netflix and on many websites.

The shows final episode led to explosive backlash

There is however one massive flaw in this series. It's been talked about hundreds of times, and will probably be talked about again, but the final episode is horrendous. In the last 30 or so minutes a decade of television was ruined. Let me explain why. The show is called How I met your Mother however, in the last 30 minutes, the mother is killed off by a disease she was never before mentioned of having, and replaced by the 'aunt' who the main character (Ted) had been chasing for years prior to meeting the mother. The rest of the series had shown Ted and Robin together before, and had always tried to explain why they shouldn't be together. To throw all this away in the last thirty minutes of the last episode is disrespectful to the mother's character, to Ted and the mother's relationship and to the fans. 

A great show, which died a messy and bloody death. I would still wholeheartedly recommend the series to anyone, but stop the last episode halfway and imagine your own ending.