What started as a great comedy series, ended as a struggle to finish an episode. Recommended but stop watching when it starts getting uncomfortable..

"How I Met Your Mother" has one of the worst endings in tv no entertainment history. What a slap in the face to everybody who watched this show for 9 years and yet this show still has a 9 out of 10 for me. Why is that? Because I truly believe this is one of the best shows of all time so many good quotes and catchphrases and running gags and this show is so memorable and you love all the characters so much and you always feel weird when a show you love ends but when it ends like this you are just so angry and upset. I had heard that people were very angry about the ending of this show but I thought that was because they didn't like the mother and thought Ted and Robin should end up together turns out it was the total opposite. Ted and Robin were never electric togther they had they're moments but weren't even close to Barney and Robin. The last few seasons still have great episodes but the writing descions as a whole were terrible. I wasn't sure what they were pushing having Barney and Robin engaged but still hinting that Ted and Robin had feelings for each other it was like COME ON MAKE A DESCION and I thought they were just gonna have bad writing hinting those feelings and have them both end up with someone else but the writers said no lets have terrible writing. You spend literally an entire season with Robin and Barney's wedding AN ENTIRE SEASON then in the next episode were told they get divorced. Nobody gives a crap about Ted and Robin now you have barney pretty much depressed but hiding it, Tracy dead who I loved btw all for a couple nobody even shipped.

I really did love this show until the last few seasons, I feel like the writers just used the mother as a plot device to keep everyone running in and interested, and there are many things to prove my point. Plus in the end him telling his kids how he met their mother was really all a big waste because it was just him asking his kids for permission to date their "aunt" Robin. This had one of the most horribly stupid endings of All TIME, plus I also feel they used the mother for things that would help get Robin with Ted, like once Robin found out she couldn't have children (which at first she dirnt want them and of course I'm not blaming her for not being able to have them) but once she found this out of course she didn't be with Ted who wanted children and marriage two things she didn't want, but oh then we have the mother she gives him children then dies offscreen after we see her like twice the whole show and Robin is all for marriage now because she was married to Barney who was supposedly the "wrong guy" which he wasn't they were OTP together. So now the wife is out of the way and he has children and he's more mature and so is she so now they can get together? Like so fucking stupid I mean even the whole season on Robin and Barney's wedding and then next epiosde after tat oh their divorce and it's just passed over like it meant nothing and Barney is suppose to make due because all of a sudden one of the chicks he was with previous had a child for him I mean come on the writing towards the end was horribly sloppy and its like they just had a perfect puzzle almost completely built and then decided to destroy it once it had one piece left. I LOVED this show tuned in for every epiosde snf then the end literally just ruined the whole show for me because they used the mother as a plot device, a baby maker and a way to help Ted grow better for Robin and that is so fucked up in so many ways

For a show that is more or less Friends 2.0 (started in 2005 after Friends ended in 2004 and about a group of twenty something year old friends that hangout in a city, go to a local coffee shop/bar, have the attractive and single female of the group Rachel/Robin, and the hopeless romantic that's super quirky Ross/Ted, and heavily focuses on the single shenanigans of the other guy in the group Joey/Barney), this show gets it right and lives up to the hype. Well at least for the first seven seasons. Season 8 starts to see repetitive/frustrating plot points, and Season 9 seems largely thrown together loosely about shenanigans and doesn't really focus on what the audience wants to see. Where Friends nails the ending, How I Met Your Mother flutters. Regardless, still one hell of a show and should be one that everyone checks out.

Average Season Review: 8.33/10

Recommendation - Must See (for Sitcom Fans)

*EDIT* (After Spin-off How I Met Your Father: Season 1)

The spin off was fine, particularly for fans of the original series. Unfortunately, it does not do anything too remarkable and does bring down the "How I Met Your..." series average slightly.

Average Season Review: 8.2/10

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.