Although it’s been a lock for a couple of months now, CBS made it official yesterday by renewing How I Met Your Mother for a ninth season. Apparently, although all the parties had agreed to the renewal, it took a few weeks to work out all the specifics. We also learned that, in the ninth season, we will learn the identity of the mother, although we were not apprised of which part of the season she would avail herself: At the end? Or will much of the season be devoted to Ted’s woo? If it’s the latter, $27 bucks says that the mother and Ted will not immediately hit it off; they will loathe one another, and it will take them several episodes to realize they are in love. Of course, that very same relationship dynamic has been used in countless romantic comedies and in several of Ted’s relationships already, but Craig Thomas and Carter Bays have become quite skilled at recycling plotlines.
The real question is: Will this really be the final season?
After all, How I Met Your Mother is one of only six uber-successful sitcoms remaining on television right now, ratings-wise (along with Big Bang Theory, 2 Broke Girls, Two and a Half Men, Mike & Molly and Modern Family). A ninth season, with the promise of meeting the mother, will likely only increase the ratings, and HIMYM is killing in syndication. There was only one reluctant cast member this time around, Jason Segel, and while he does have a feature film career, it has cooled considerably of late (The Five-Year Engagement was a bust, and while Jeff Who Lives at Home was an amazing film, it didn’t exactly burn up the box-office). Segel has only one movie queued up, as one of many actors who play themselves in the end-of-the-world comedy, This Is the End, which opens up against Man of Steel, which means it’s probably not going to do so well, either.
So, let’s be real with ourselves: Has a sitcom ever gone off the air after its highest-rated season? Even Friends, Cheers and Seinfeld were on the decline. And with the introduction of the mother, it’s safe to say that next season may be HIMYM’s highest rated season to date. So while it’s possible and even likely that the ninth season will be its last, I’m not aware of a lot of network television shows that end their run when there’s still a ton of money left in the till (see also, Dexter).
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Will the explain why the minister appears to be a Fathead sticker?
“Not even priest-related, just a real hot pic.”
Ted Mosby is possibly the worst character ever on television.
+1
The fact the show is watchable with him as the main character is amazing
Super agreed. The other characters really make show watchable (it’s not even that great of a show in my opinion, but I couldn’t just watch Ted Mosby is Alone or some shit like that).
Jerking the story around with the “WE HAVE TO REVEAL THE MOTHER AT THE END!” idea is just too much to take now. Like 3 weeks ago, we see she’s the bassist in the wedding band (which I thought was good given ted and marshall’s conversation about “any kim from any cool band, can’t be too picky” joke a few years back) but the following week was another sharp decline in quality.
Just show us who the mother is at the end of the season and, since it must go on, give us a season or two with her in the group. Someone needs to tell them the last line of the show doesn’t need to be “and that’s how i met your mother!”
My hope is that we find out at the end that this is some sort of 1001 Arabian Nights scenario:
It turns out Ted’s wife is crazy. She has him tied to a chair in front of the kids on the couch with a gun to his head. She told him to tell the children how they met. Ted knows that once the story is done he is a dead man. Hence, the need to draw the story out as long as possible. The last image we will have of the show is Ted’s wife putting two slugs in the back of his head then Barney comes out and gives her a high five.
I don’t understand why the writers and creators now think that its this big mystery. We have spent 7+ years getting to know the cast and with the exception of Ted, we like them. We will watch even if we know who the mother is. Just tell us at the end of this season and then tell us the story of them dating and getting along next year and then put a bullet in the series.
Or you know, just a bullet in Ted like Paul suggested. I would be ok with that.
Awesome idea! Makes more sense than most anything else they could come up with.
It turns out it was all just one of Barney’s plays from the playbook – the 1001 Nights. Love it.
I like to think that the kids arn’t his… he just banged some 45 yr old and he got caught stealing a juice box in her robe, and like Ted would, he is mumbling through the awkward situation.
TIL there was a psychopathic wife packing heat in 1001 Arabian Nights.
But what about the kids? Surely they can draw that out for another 9 seasons.
Trollers gonna troll
Don’t really see this as piling on. I think a lot of us have been saying things like this for years, it’s just tougher to swallow each year. They very easily could have carried the show on with the reveal of the mother sooner, showing them dating for a couple seasons, or making the mother part of the narrative frame of telling stories to the kids.
I thought it was interesting when I learned Jeff Who Lives at Home was written by Mark Duplass. He is apparently nowhere near as funny as he seems on the league.
Duplass like the whole “this is fun ny because it is awkward” (See: Cyrus as another example)
I think you mean Ted’s wife, Dustin. You repeatedly said Ted’s mother.
Peter King loves this headline.
ARRRRGGGHHH You beat me to the joke.
Finally getting to meet the mother is WEIRD. Perhaps they will meet her in the most neutral of all places, WICHITA.
“We may never know if HIMYM is the greatest comedy in television history. It could be. I could tell you all about why it’s been great, and why it has also occasionally struggled, but I’ll let David Bianculli of TVWorthWatching put it best:
[three paragraphs of actual analysis from someone else]
One thing’s for sure, though. It will be missed…until something better comes along. If that’s possible.”
“After all, How I Met Your Mother is one of only six uber-successful sitcoms remaining on television right now, ratings-wise (along with Big Bang Theory, 2 Broke Girls, Two and a Half Men, Mike & Molly and Modern Family).”
THAT is fucking depressing. Way to go America.
Is it too early to start drinking?
I don’t know what 11 am on a Thursday looks like for you, but…
“once the audince has met the mother, the show’s original central conflict is now resolved and it’s done, there’s no way forward.”
Uh-hu, because resolving the “central conflict” is such an important factor in deciding to continue a sitcom.
Why yes, there has never been a sitcom that continued well after the original premise has run its course, they all ended just in time.
That’s why Two and a Half Men ended when Charlie Sheen left after all, cause the central conflict was gone….
I feel that we need to meet the mother either at the end of this season or the start of next season. We should find out exactly why she is the one Ted ends up with. Right now we know nothing about her beyond her hobbies, a few things she likes and dislikes, and a couple pieces of trivia. We know essentially nothing about her personality.
Without being able to spend some time with her and getting to know why she and Ted end up together would feel cheap. It would make it seem as if Ted marries her not because he actually loves her, but because he loves the idea of her. She loves all the things that Ted wants his future wife to love and dislikes the things he wants her to dislike. So he is trapped in a marriage that has no real emotional ties just because she can be shoe-horned into this ideal visage that Ted wants.
They’re all going to be very rich from syndication fees anyway, so I hope when this season ends the cast are the most despised people in film and TV and never work again. And I even reluctantly include Cobie Smulders in that, no matter how good she looked in a SHIELD suit.
I really liked Five Year Engagement, though i know it was a flop. I think if Segel didn’t have HIMYM he would be able to focus on his film career more and it probably wouldn’t have cooled.
Maybe I’m naive, but i really think this is the last year.
I also liked it. And I was dragged into it not wanting to like it.
This is the first show that I checked out before the end. Kind of makes me sad, but, it’s so terrible now I’d rather think about watching 2 and a half men over HIMYM’s piece of crap show. Nobody on that show is likeable.