How Did I Meet Your Mother?

With the new age of media, such as streaming and video-on-demand, parent companies are finding it more difficult to appeal to all demographics with pertaining to one of the original purposes of television: to entertain while keeping a crowd hooked each week. Only a select few television shows have a lasting effect on the general populace. Some of those television shows that obtain the feeling of never disappearing from the hearts of the audiences are: I Love Lucy, Cheers, Doctor Who, Breaking Bad, Seinfeld, Friends, Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, and many more. The show located at the latter of the list, How I Met Your Mother, concluded its nine-season run in 2014. With a continuously trusted viewership, the show lasted and so did the few million watching each week. How I Met Your Mother was not only about a man with another man’s voice telling his children about their mother using flashbacks and flash-forwards, but a relatable and personable representation of a group of twenty and thirty-somethings who are shown at their finest and at their most miserable.

How I Met Your Mother began with the creators, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, pondering about the occurrences they had with their friends in New York (Ghosh). Bays and Thomas wrote at David Letterman’s Late Night Show when they decided to produce their own show with the same story involving their own events (Ghosh). As the two have spewed before in an interview with E!, the show and concepts for it “…just came really naturally” (Ghosh). The show did not use live audiences or an awful laugh track, differing it from other sitcoms. Instead, HIMYM taped the entire show in a silent studio and filled in laughter with audiences of a later screening; the flow of the show seemed much more natural without a live studio feel (Nicholson). The pilot episode aired on September 19, 2005 on CBS and the world saw the famous and utterly unknown cast make a decent reception. The group of actors consisted of: Josh Radnor (Ted Mosby), Alyson Hannigan (Lily Aldrin), Jason Segel (Marshall Eriksen), Cobie Smulders (Robin Scherbatsky), and Neil Patrick Harris (Barney Stinson). Most people knew Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Pie) and Harris (Doogie Howser, M.D.) from their previous media outings. Some had heard of Jason Segel (Freaks and Geeks) from short-lived shows or small film roles. Absolutely nobody knew who Radnor and Smulders were at the time, which can be difficult to believe when Smulders has now been in movies with Vince Vaughn, Josh Duhamel, Scarlett Johannsson, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo. Season one finished with mixed reviews, having a rating of only 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, but made “best of” lists in 2006 (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: SEASON 1 (2005-2006)). How I Met Your Mother did well enough to get renewed for its second season and seven more after that.

The target audience for How I Met Your Mother consisted of mainly young adults to middle-aged, 18-49 years of age (CBS, Kissell). The overarching age range could be simplified as “under 50” (Adalian). The crowd watching each week never grew extensively, but it did remain steady due to its loyal fan base. The most watched episode was its last, “Last Forever” (Parts 1 and 2), with 12.9 million viewers (preliminary Nielsen), beating out “The Pineapple Incident” which hit 12.3 million back in 2005 (Adalian). As a television series, the critical reception was above average, Rotten Tomatoes giving it an 81% and TV.com rating it 9/10. IMDb fans rated the show in between the two with a steady 8.4 on a 10 scale (IMDb.com). Nielsen ratings from the finale soared 50% of the key demographic to 5.4/16 adults with 13.13 million watchers (CBS, Kissell). The finale reception had diverse reviews as some thought that nine years led to the bad kind of heartbreak for the devotees and others agreed that it was a perfect and beautiful ending to How I Met Your Mother’s nine-season stint. As Jenna Clarke from Fairfax Media explained:

The reaction to the ending of the show was mixed on social media, with a majority of fans voicing vehement disappointment in the finale. While others applauded the creators of the series, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, for writing a realistic finale which waxed lyrical about second chances, or in the case of Ted and Robin, third, fourth and fifth chances.

This quote from the Sydney Morning Herald is a clear description from a lifestyle reporter about the mixed reviews and transverse opinions on “Last Forever”. Most onlookers were outraged with the writing and creators, Bays and Thomas, in opposition to the most dedicated, who seemed to experience a whole other final episode to the series.

My adoration and pure affinity for the world’s greatest television show, How I Met Your Mother, began in 2011. I was a freshman in high school and I had discovered the only true love I would ever have in my pathetic, sitcom-loving life. I first saw the brilliant show around 2007, but I did not have cable installed in my quarters. Since my family did not want to watch the show nor record it for me, I caught a few minutes every now and then when it was syndicated through another channel. However when we packed up our belongings and punched in SOUTHEAST into the GPS, we landed in Fishers, Indiana and I received my chance to watch current-airing episodes. I relished the opportunity to become a self-proclaimed super-fan and revere the perfection as my new favorite show. By the time I plopped into my sophomore year, I was the city HIMYM aficionado. I told everybody about the show and how it was revolutionary in the aesthetics of filming and most of all, storytelling. Even when my fellow peers and random strangers did not want to engage in what could be history’s finest television conversation, I continued to ramble on without hesitation. I did not only fall for the idea of the show but for the characters, creators, music, minor flaws, relatable issues, and all other aspects of it. The fact that the show was not perfectly made is what made it perfectly made. It showed how life really is presented to every human in existence, especially those not in the cast, but the crew and slew of stagehands, directors, producers, prop management, etc. The finale, to me, was utter magnificence. It incorporated the first season with the last episode, a full circle; a 360. That type of genius in writing can only be expressed by watching the episodes “Something New” and “Something Old”. Those episodes display eloquent form of how HIMYM may have been the first and last of its kind. How I Met Your Mother is atop my favorite television series list, beating out Freaks and Geeks and Seinfeld, yet HIMYM is something far more important to me. It is more than a simple dramedy shown at 8:00 p.m. on CBS. How I Met Your Mother is love, happiness, depression, downfalls, letdowns, friendship, upbringings, death, and life; these aspects and more involve everything that real people expect from the life they are living, and if a simple sitcom can express that in nine years, hats off to them.

How I Met Your Mother will have a superfluous amount of consequence, ramification, and continued intellectual discussion. Originally, the series was classified as a Friends remake. As the show progressed, so did the intent on calling this new show of twenty-somethings a rip-off. The show’s creators attempted a double-whammy of the same story almost directly after the original series concluded, called How I Met Your Dad. CBS nor other parent stations picked up the pilot. It was said that the show would occur right around same time as Ted’s, yet it would be from the perspective of another random parent telling her children about, well, how she met their dad. The impact that the last season alone had on the public was and is still much more substantial than most would have ever expected. People are still furious about the finale and how, excuse the spoiler, the mother dies and Robin winds up with Teddy Westside again. I know that I still talk about the show as if it were on and reminisce about certain episodes and even cry at the end of each heart-wrenching teaser. If any other shows challenge a storytelling of a relationship again, it will be seen as a copycat and thrown aside. If another show uses flashbacks and flash-forwards as much as HIMYM, it will shunned and kicked out of a weekly lineup. How I Met Your Mother was never designed to be a fictional story about a character’s life, but a reality of every person’s life outside of the show. It taught people valuable lessons: nothing good ever happens after 2:00 a.m., don’t postpone joy, destiny exists, there is a yellow umbrella for everyone, maybe we don’t have to give meaning to every little thing, perfect isn’t always perfect, and to just wait for it.

References:

Adalian, Josef. "Ratings: How I Met Your Mother Exits With Its Biggest Audience Ever." Vulture. New York Media, LLC, 1 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

"CBS' 'How I Met Your Mother' Finale Surges 50% in Demo to Hit Series High." Variety. Ed. Rick Kissell. Variety Media, LLC, 01 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Clarke, Jenna. "How I Met Your Mother Finale Causes Fans Tears and Outrage." The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media, 1 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Ghosh, Korbi. "Print - TV Summer School: How to Create and Run a Successful Sitcom." Print - TV Summer School: How to Create and Run a Successful Sitcom. E! Entertainment Television, 06 Aug. 2007. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

"HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (2005 - )." Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster, Inc., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

"How I Met Your Mother." IMDb.com. IMDb.com, Inc., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

"HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: SEASON 1 (2005-2006)." Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster, Inc., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

"How I Met Your Mother." TV.com. CBS Interactive Inc., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Nicholson, Max. "WHAT MADE HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER DIFFERENT: THE GOOD AND THE BAD." IGN. Ziff Davis, 27 Mar. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.