There are those who hate it, but also those who love it madly, there are those who are really obsessed with it and those who would like to never hear about it again, but one thing is certain: How I Met Your Mother it has been and continues to be one of the series that have most impressed themselves in the collective imagination of the serialized and who made the history of television. A disproportionately successful series that has entertained its fans for nine long and full-bodied seasons, making them passionate about the stories of its protagonists and experimenting an unusual kind of storytelling for a sitcom, but capable of continually surprising its audience. In the face of such involvement, despite a divisive ending to say the least, the series has certainly not fallen into oblivion and already not long after its conclusion, the rumor on a its possible spin-off they grew stronger and stronger, but the thing ended up in oblivion. When finally in 2021 the news was made official by Hulu that How I Met Your Father was under development, the historical fans of the series did not prove, at least in general, too enthusiastic.
Warning, the following article may contain minor spoilers on the pilot episode of How I Met Your Father.
There were those who cried out for choice politically correct to make the protagonist of the comedy a woman, who feared plagiarism, who, again, that their favorite TV series would be contaminated by this new arrival. Then there were too those who saw in the project a total lack of ideas and, consequently, an empty and unattractive product that needed the tow of the more famous mother series to make itself great in front of the eyes of others. In short, a soulless series to which they would never have given one chance. Yet, among many remake, reboot, prequel, sequel e spin-off without any sense, How I Met Your Father was born for a very specific reason in addition to the monetary one, exploit a basic concept that could still give a lot and tell a new generation of protagonists projected into a society that, even in just ten years, is radically different from the one represented by HIMYM.
How I Met Your Father but it is not one show carbon copy of the original and not even trying to be: of course, it would be hypocritical to say that the protagonists of this new story do not draw, at least in part, on the characterizations of Ted Mosby and his friends, but this refers not only to the model of How I Met Your Motherbut also to all the series of that vein of American comedy centered on the story of love stories and friendships so strong that they seem like symbiotic ties a la Friends. How I Met Your Fatherin fact, it does not copy but pay homage, it does not want to reproduce characters and situations of the mother series paro paro, but instead give nsap eggs to a particular way of narrating which would otherwise have been shelved.
How I Met Your Faher takes up the same recipe, but modifies it thanks to different ingredients, blended together in a different order and capable of generating new and unexpected flavours.
Misjudged even before its release on Hulu (and in our country on Disney Plus), How I Met Your Father it was then inundated with an avalanche of criticism after the release of its ten-episode first season. Yet, amid so many comments ranging from those who want to despise the sitcom comedy to those who take it out on the characters, deemed not up to par with those of the original series, the attitude that dominates the scenes the most is the indifference. The first episodes of the second season of the showuploaded to Disney Plus in our country on April 19, they did not arouse any kind of debate on social media as well as among the speeches of enthusiasts. And this, we really have to say, is a real shame! Despite its limitations, How I Met Your Father it is confirmed to be quite an enjoyable seriesfor obvious reasons indebted to the mother series and which does not particularly excel in what it does, but certainly full of new ideas and capable of paying homage to the past without having to depend excessively on it.
How I Met Your Father in short, it is a respectable series, especially if you think of the current comedy series which, with rare exceptions, continues to offer us truly forgettable and not very incisive products which usually find cancellation even before being able to seriously present themselves to the public . So why all this severity? Why reproach a How I Met Your Father aspects that are treated much worse elsewhere? Why not be more lenient with a series that, despite everything, manages to offer us scenarios that, in the worst case, are still more than enough?
Because, like it or not, How I Met Your Father is not How I Met Your Mother.
Why then blame a series of being and, at the same time not being, just a copy? So don’t give the sitcom the blame it doesn’t have, but which continues to attract itself due to an all too uncomfortable legacy. “Restless lies the chief who wears the crown“. E How I Met Your Father, who must carry the weight of a great legacy, knows this well, but still tries to build its own identity, while investing in situations and narrative styles typical of the genre to which it belongs and at the same time trying to build variations on the theme compared to the format on which it is based. So here’s that we see the narrator and we can only imagine the son, thus giving a sense of mystery about the identity of the phantom father. Here it reappears the iconic apartment, albeit revisited for the occasion. Here we have once again a bar as a meeting place for the group, but this time owned by one of the protagonists. Here we fear the “I love you“, that one is an adult while still feeling like a child.
So why not try giving a chance to a product that made it he is still trying his best to offer us a good series and that it still has so much untapped potential? If, in fact, with its first season, the show had only been able to sketch the characterizations of its protagonists and had had to run with the general plot, the second season, made up of ten episodes, he is already partially correcting the shot thanks to running gag more successful and a plot that is slowly starting to mesh. What we still lack is in fact, more than anything else, the affection for these characters, who we still know too little to be able to love, who still, given the little space obtained so far, are still little more than strangers. But the best fruits are those that are grown with the correct timing!
In short, it takes time: time to get to know the protagonists and their dynamics, time to explore, time to allow them to mature.
So why not try to pretend you’re only watching a pleasant comedy, a series that has no uncomfortable kinship and try to give a chance to a product that has been mistreated by so many for the wrong reasons? What you may find yourself looking at may actually be a product not worth your time, or, you may find yourself in front of a very pleasant surprise, all to be discovered. It’s all about trying!