How I Met Your Mother

My wife recently got me hooked on a new show called How I Met Your Mother or HIMYM for short, and whilst its new to me, its been around for ages in the US and is currently in its third season. The principle of the show is simple – every episode starts with Ted the main character talking to his future kids on the sofa, explaining quite literally how he met their mother and then we are whisked away by the magic of TV to the point he is talking about.

The show stars Josh Radnor as Ted the main character, Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky (Ted’s TV anchor love interest), Jason Segel as Marshall Eriksen (Ted’s room mate), Alyson Hannigan as Marshall’s love interest) and Neil Patrick Harris as Barney a man obsessed with the opposite sex.

I have sat through the best part of two seasons to date, and haven’t watched a bad episode, its an amazing well written situation comedy that will have you belly laughing at various points through EACH episode. The closest main stream comparison I can bring to the table is Friends, but to be honest I think this surpasses Friends on so many levels, Neil Patrick Harris has a very “Joey” style character but is much more deep and charismatic, and is the focal point of so many of the episodes, most notably in the episode where the gang head to a Coffee house and the staff writes the names of the characters on their various Styrofoam cups, and a bit of poor handwriting dubs Barney as “Swarly” for the complete episode with hilarious effects (Kind of hard to grasp without actually seeing the episode or identifying with the characters).

Apparently HIMYM has been shown in the UK before, with the BBC purchasing the rights to the first season and showing them on BBC2 back in ‘06, (but probably in a stupid late night slot like Seinfeld was) and it was shown at some length on Trouble. Hopefully one of the mainstream channels who buy American shows will pick it up such as CH4 or Five so more people can see this excellent TV show in all its glory, or if your feeling brave and trust my brief insight, you can pick season one on DVD from Amazon, or similar sites like that on Region 2.

For more information on the show click HERE to go to the official site, however a word of caution if you have never seen the show, be wary as spoilers are displayed all over the site.