If you are a super “How I Met Your Mother” fan, you probably heard about the show’s spin-off “How I Met Your Father”, which debuted on the streaming platform Hulu on January 18th, and got curious to know how it was going to be and if it would live up to our expectations as “HIMYM” fans. Well, I’ve watched the first season, and I am going to give my honest opinion about the new TV series.
WATCH OUT, THIS ARTICLE HAS SPOILERS!
When Hulu announced that they were going to do a HIMYM spin-off, many fans got really excited about it, since it’s been almost 10 years since the original show ended, and even more excited when found out that Hilary Duff was going to be starring in the series as Sophie, the main character. The expectations got really high, and we started to think about how the story was going to be. “Is it going to be just like ‘HIMYM’ but with switched genders? Or a totally different thing?”.
The storyline is pretty similar to the 2004 show. It all starts with future Sophie — played by Kim Cattrall — in 2050 wanting to tell her son the story of how she met his father, just like our good old Ted Mosby, but in a different way. The first difference is that we don’t see her son, we only see Sophie talking to him through the television, and later we understand why. Another one, that makes the show’s storyline fascinating, is that she tells us in the pilot about the night she met her future baby daddy. But there’s one thing, she meets 5 guys on the same night! So we know when and how she met the father, we just don’t know who the guy is and how she fell in love with him. This makes the show really exciting at first, but some things really bothered me.
The comedy style is really different from “HIMYM”. There were moments when the recorded laugh appeared, and I didn’t think that the joke was funny at all. There were episodes in which I didn’t have one good laugh, something that would never happen in the first show. Maybe the jokes were going to be funny, but the way the actors did it ruined it. And then, we go to the second thing that bothered me: the actors.
I loved the diversity: we have Latin, black, Asian, and an LGBTQIA+ character. However, the acting… I know that the sitcom-style isn’t easy and most of the cast is new — to some of them this is their first big job or time doing comedy, the pressure is huge. But it just didn’t work. The only one that I actually liked and made me laugh was Francina Raisa — who plays Valentina, Sophie’s best friend and roommate —, she has good comedy timing and I loved her character! I got really disappointed with Hilary Duff and Josh Peck (Drew). They have been in this industry for decades and had already made amazing works, but in this show, they seemed forced and with zero comedy timing.
Besides that, I liked the story! Everything was kind of in a rush because the season only has ten episodes, but I got so curious about how it was going to end, especially after the season finale. Also, we cannot look at the new characters and tell who they are from the old show, they have a bit of each character. This makes them unique and not a copy and paste from the iconic ones that we love so much.
And last but not least, I cannot forget the references, easter eggs, and special appearances! For the “HIMYM” community, this was definitely the best part of the whole show. Seeing the old apartment and the bar made me scream. There are also little references that aren’t easy to get at first, as the marine biologist. And, of course, Robin Scherbatsky, who made an amazing appearance in the finale. I loved seeing Cobie Smulders back as Robin in the bar after 8 years and giving Sophie incredible advice about her love life with her classical phrase “Timing is a bitch”. In the same episode Carl (the bartender), the Captain, and Boats Boats Boats showed up as well, those last two actually are very important for Sophie’s story and may be the reason why it was my favorite episode.
So, is “How I Met Your Father” living up to “HIMYM” fans’ expectations? In my case, it did not. It was pretty hard for me to finish the show, I got bored very easily and started to move the episodes forward. But I have high hopes that they are going to do better, the show was renewed for season 2, and if they keep doing episodes like the last one it’s going to be incredible.