This show represents something of a milestone in my life. It was the first time I ever paid any attention to the quality of writing in TV or film. Unfortunately, when that switch turned on I realized I do not care for How I Met Your Mother. It’s frequently preachy and sentimental, but legitimately never earns that status from its audience. Why should I be taking these lessons from these people? They’re not doing well. Most of them are annoying humans.
Ted’s search for a wife is the epitome of the “just a nice guy” stereotype. He presents himself as sweet and caring, but in reality comes off as borderline sociopathic with how conniving and twisted it all becomes. It’s all consuming: his only purpose is to find love. But rather than actually be some hopeless romantic, he ends up doing some awful things. But moreover: he’s not even that good of a person. It’s just like the type you meet in real life. Ted wants you to believe he’s the good guy, but how often does he play into Barney’s awful schemes?
Speaking of, Barney as a character is frighteningly close to aging like fine wine, but that would only be true if there were a closer examination of his misogynistic behavior that resulted in a deeper exploration of his trauma of childhood. This does not exist in any meaningful way. Hinted at, sure, but then we are also meant to be fully on board with his conquest of lust until the show decides he’s changed like the flick of a switch. There isn’t too much of a shift, it’s more like a three step stoop if that stoop started in China and ended in Mexico. Character development, as you might have gathered, is a struggle frequently as though these characters were never meant to have any sense of self. Most of the cast’s personality changes per episode to suit whatever best fits the platitude the writers are shoving down your throat.
Which brings me to the biggest elephant in the room: Robin. How I Met Your Mother hinges on one character and it’s her. Yeah, it’s extremely weird. There is an intense amount of heavy lifting placed on Smulders to be the romantic interest for two characters (although it genuinely never feels like a love triangle which is even weirder). But the unfortunate part is, Robin is a very weak character. She’s all business forward. She can’t settle down for no man. Except she can and will frequently, as she’s barely single throughout the entire show. Her choices are never “I’m choosing myself instead of Ted” it’s “I’m choosing literally any other man”. And I don’t say this from the standpoint of Ted being a nice guy and deserving Robin (see above). I say this in terms of this show having the gall to act like they’ve created an independent woman. They haven’t.
The only characters on the show I like are the ones I’ve not mentioned: Marshall and Lilly. They likable and the performances by Segal and Hannigan are top-notch sitcom performances. They actually deal with relatable struggles and seem to wrestle in a realistic way. This makes everything mentioned above all the more frustrating because it becomes clear that the onus isn’t on the inability of the writers, it’s on a shaky grasp or understanding of what counts for good character development.
Clearly the attempt by the writers is to create Friends for the next generation. It’s about a group of twenty-somethings living in New York learning how to be adults while figuring out love and friendship as they mature. Hell, there are even multiple plot points ripped directly from the original show, barely even altered. Now, I’m a bit biased because Friends is genuinely one of my favorite shows of all time, but in How I Met Your Mother it’s almost laughable how inorganic and simplified everything they ripped from the former show actually is. There’s very little sense that these characters should be friends. They just feel like drinking buddies. Their version of support for each other is showing up when things are at their worst. Mostly, they’re just extremely cruel to each other. There are attempts (sometimes even good ones) to create bits among them, but they all pale in comparison to the more grounded approach taken by Friends. How I Met Your Mother is very gimmicky. It’s told through a plot device that becomes increasingly more contrived the longer the show drags. The majority of the jokes are very broad and don’t exist to expand our sense of character. Compare this to the 90s mega-hit: the show is usually extremely dialogue based. There’s more of a sense of banter and camaraderie. The humor comes from clever dialogue rather than the heavy concept-driven set ups of the latter series. In other words, one of them feels like a sitcom striving for more while the other feels like a hangout movie that just so happens to be a sitcom. I’m mot going to tell you that Friends does not result in similar sitcom tropes, but the emphasis on character and subtle development greatly bolsters the show as a whole.
I could compare the two further. It would likely require more time and effort but people have already done that ad nauseam. I won’t do that any longer here. I’ll suffice it to say that I found this show frequently frustrating in terms of how it wants me to empathize with characters that do not feel real or likable. Ah well, maybe it’s just not for me.
