'How I Met Your Father' Tries to Recapture Old Magic
by EG
Even though the sitcom How I Met Your Mother ended in a way that displeased most fans, talk of a gender-switched reboot began even before the original series was cold. After a false start or two, that reboot, How I Met Your Father, is now airing on Hulu. But does it succeed in resurrecting the magic that made HIMYM successful in the first place? Read on for details.
By the time How I Met Your Mother stumbled to the finish line after nine seasons in 2014, it seemed to have outgrown itself. Its once-youthful protagonists were pushing 40. The multi-cam format, already waning in popularity at its start, had fallen further out of favor. And its love story had been dragged out long past the point of patience for many viewers (this one included), culminating in a finale that only seemed to confirm the show should have ended a lot sooner.
When it first premiered in 2005, though, it felt like a breath of fresh air — a worthy Friends successor with a believable understanding of young adult life in New York, and characters who felt fully formed almost from the jump. Hulu’s sequel, How I Met Your Father, tries to recreate some of that early spark for 2022, and in some superficial aspects it succeeds. But in the ways that count most, it feels so far like a pale imitation.
HIMYF borrows the same basic structure and many of the plot beats of the original. This time, Kim Cattrall plays narrator Sophie, who in the year 2050 regales her kid with stories of her love life in the year 2022, where she’s played by Hilary Duff. Sophie, like Ted Mosby before her, is a hopeless romantic, impatient to find The One and settle down. And where there’s a Ted, naturally, there’s a Robin. Here it’s Chris Powell’s Jesse, a cynic who’s skeptical of marriage but seems charmed by Sophie’s earnestness in spite of himself.
HIMYF‘s pilot, like HIMYM‘s, involves both a proposal — Jesse’s best friend Sid (Suraj Sharma) pops the question to his long-term, long-distance girlfriend Hannah (Ashley Reyes) — and a crowded cab ride to a last-ditch grand romantic gesture. Though HIMYF‘s narrative connection to HIMYM is a tenuous one (and, according to its marketing team, a spoiler), everything from the tenor of its performances to the coziness of its sets fit seamlessly into the universe laid out by its predecessor.
But if old episodes of HIMYM feel like comfort food in 2022, HIMYF feels less like an updated recipe than the prepackaged Trader Joe’s version. It’s good enough to pass in a pinch, but not quite good enough to surpass the real deal.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.