'How I Met Your Father' has potential?

Drafted: Feb 3, 2022

Hey guys, so here's a review on the new series that launched on January 18th 2022 titled "How I Met Your Father" which is a sequel/spin-off to the original series "How I Met Your Mother" that ran from 2005 - 2014. This series has different writers from HIMYM.

THIS IS A SPOILER REVIEW

How I Met Your Father kinda follows the same plot line as in HIMYM but differently at the same time. HIMYF revolves around Sophie, played by Hilary Duff & Kim Cartell and her friends, Valentina, Jesse, Charlie, Sid & Ellen. Kim Cartell plays the future Sophie as she narrates her son how she met his father, thus the title. Josh Peck and Leighton Meester also have recurring roles in the series as Drew and Meredith respectively.

The writers of HIMYM followed a planned route in their story line where it was decided that Robin is the one that Ted is going to end up with as they had filmed the scenes of Ted telling his children that he is in love with Robin during the airing of the first season as they wanted Ted's kids age to be the same. Whereas the HIMYF writers are planning to go on a different route than HIMYM, as they will see how the first season that consists of 10 episodes play out, whether the audience likes the series or not, etc.

Episode one starts off with Kim Cartell entering as future Sophie and calling her son. The start is very abrupt as Sophie just walks in, calls her son and out of no where starts telling her son how she met his father. The year the future Sophie telling the story is 2050. Maybe it's abrupt because it feels weird any one other than Ted telling a long story that Barney could tell in a minute!

The laughter track in this show is extremely annoying as there as moments where the joke didn't land yet the laughter track plays in the background. Guess it's one of the drawbacks shooting without a live audience.

Future Sophie tells her son about how it lead to meeting his father. When her son says he knows how his parents met but Sophie tells him he knows the basics not the sexy bits - it feels weird and then she goes on to tell him about this one particular night in New York city where she had a tinder date with a guy named Ian. She also goes on to say she had 87 dates that year, the year being 2022. We are then introduced to Jesse and Sid, two best friends and Jesse is Sophie's Uber driver and his best friend is just hitching a ride. Sophie seems okay with the fact that she is sharing an Uber with a complete stranger who is just hitching a ride. She also starts conversing with them and telling her life story. You just don't do that in real life! She also tells them she thinks Ian is her soulmate. Ian and Sophie have been talking for weeks. Jesse is an anti romantic person. Sid is excited because he is going to propose his long distance girlfriend, Hannah. Sid also has a bar called Pemberton's. Though I wished they has named it Puzzles! As Sophie exits the car, Sid tells Jesse that he can see that Jesse liked Sophie. Sophie is a photographer; as of now she does kid’s birthday party, engagements, she likes street photography. Then when she reaches her place of the date with a guy named Ian who she met on tinder, who is a marine biologist, he tells her that he is moving to Australia and so having a Long distance isn't possible. Future Sophie says her date with Ian was her best first date, “the date so good you don’t even check you phone." She disappointed goes home, an apartment she shares with her best friend, Valentina. Valentina is Mexican, assistant stylist. It is also revealed that Valentina has asked her new boyfriend, Charlie to move in with them whom she met at London Fashion Week. Charlie, British, rich royal now disowned by his family poor, cut off trust fund since he chose to come live with his new girlfriend, Valentina. To which Sophie comments “they Meghan Markled you guys." I didn't really think this line was necessary, they could have used something else or let it at that.

Sophie decides to run to the airport and tell Ian ending things was a mistake and realises she accidentally swapped phones with Sid while in Uber. So they reach Sid's bar Pemberton's, while travelling Charlie that he isn't comfortable in New York. Sophie, Valentina and Charlie enter pemberton’s and get accidentally surprised as the bar is waiting for Sid and his girlfriend Hannah. Jesse then makes everyone hide again. Sophie stays rooted to her spot and say that she freezes under pressure which is why she has been hit by three Citi bikes, Jesse takes Sophie to hide with him.

Charlie and Valentina hide and find Jesse’s adopted awkward sister, Ellen. Ellen is getting divorced and is a lesbian, first gay character of the show. Jesse tells Sophie that Sid would make sure Jesse’s proposal would be perfect purely hypothetical as Jesse intends never to get married. The one girl Jesse wanted to marry broke Jesse’s heart. It is then that Sophie realises where she knew Jesse from. Jesse got viral in a video where he proposed to his girlfriend who was also his bandmate, Meredith and she rejected him and now the video is on the internet with a hashtag proposal fail and now she is in Europe recording her first solo album and he is known around the city as Mr.Proposal Fail. He also tells her that Michelle Obama liked that viral video.

Sid proposes Hannah says yes but has to rush back LA for an emergency surgery. Charlie says New York is a hell scape. Jesse says Ellen is a loner and wants her to meet people. Sophie says Jesse can’t give up on love because of his proposal fail because she believes there’s a Brooklyn bridge girl out there for him. Brooklyn Bridge holds importance to Sophie as she has never walked on Brooklyn bridge since she moved to New York which was in college and after a while it was so long that she decided to walk it with her soulmate. 

At this point in the series, when Sophie's son talks it feels like he has a similar talking manner or style like Jesse. Jesse replies that she is one of those people whose parents stayed married, college sweethearts, 30 years married, so you’re like if they found each other there must be someone out there for everyone, she just says yes something like that, Jesse says those of us who grew up in the real world not so much. Jesse takes Sophie, Hannah, Sid, Charlie, Valentina & Ellen to the airport. Sophie wants to stop Ian. Valentina thinks she hates Charlie. Sophie tells Ian that she has been on 87 tinder dates this year meaning in 2022, all of them were duds, she just has white wine and talks to her dates, she doesn’t hook up on dates  and it felt easy with Ian for Sophie. Sophie thinks she and Ian can do Long Distance Relationship but Ian says no, but maybe someday.

Sophie is a hopeless romantic despite her mom jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend, her dad isn’t in the picture which we find out at the end of the episode. Future Sophie says that she didn’t want to wait around for someday. She walks on the Brooklyn bridge saying she is walking the bridge without the love of her life with Valentina, Charlie, Sid, Ellen, and Jesse. Valentina thinks Charlie is brave as he has lived an incredibly pampered life and he decided to walk away from it to take a chance on their relationship. Ellen says that if Sophie can walk the bridge alone and Sid can have a good attitude about his fiancé ditching him and Charlie and Valentina can try to make their completely doomed relationship work then she can stop obsessing over her divorce and ask a women out. Valentina tells Jesse about Sophie’s parents, the only thing magical about Sophie’s life is that she still believes in love at all. Jesse smiles looking at Sophie.

Jesse asks what to do for dinner which they go to Sid & Jesse’s place and guess what place it is? It's Ted and Marshall's apartment! It was definitely a nostalgic scene for all HIMYM fans. Jesse says that they got it from an old married couple who posted it on Wesleyan Alumni Group, they got them to leave their swords over the fireplace.

Future Sophie tells her son that that’s the night she met the father. Then as the theme song plays in the background, small clips of all the boys shown in the episode, Sid, Jesse, Charlie & Ian. Now it wasn't until the third episode that it is revealed she also met Drew, played by Josh Peck. Her son says that they didn’t even get together. (note: which kinda rules out Ian) Future Sophie replies that that is a much longer story, then she gets up to get more wine. (Note: she does walk with her soulmate, if Jesse, Sid or Charlie is her soulmate)

Here are some similarities

• The Theme song - HIMYM used the male version  for the theme song whereas HIMYF uses the female version.

• There's an engagement in the first episode - Marshall and Lily get engaged in the first episode of HIMYM while Sid and Hannah get engaged in the first episode of HIMYF.

• There's a champagne accident - Marshall accidentally hit Lily while opening the bottle and in the new series Hannah accidentally spills champagne on Sid while answering a text. 

• Glen McKenna 30 was a running gag/thing in HIMYM, in the new series you can spot Glen McKenna 30 in the background on a wall where Sophie and Ian are on the date.

• The same apartment - HIMYF uses the same apartment as it did in HIMYM.

• The swords - The swords that once hung over by the piano in HIMYM also used by Ted & Marshall and Robin & Lily to have a sword fight now are still in that apartment now owned by Sid & Jesse.

• There are wacky bar names uses in both shows - HIMYM had a whole scene dedicated to wacky bar names such as OKAY, WAS, WHERE, NOT OKAY, and so many more. HIMYF seems to be following the same world of these bar names as the bar we see the gang hanging out at in the second episode is named FOMO.

How the characters felt similar to the our beloved characters in HIMYM;

Sid and Jesse's friendship feels like Ted and Marshall's and Charlie being with them feels that Charlie is the Barney of the group. Sid and Hannah are like Marshall and Lily. Jesse and Sophie are like Ted and Robin. Charlie is like Barney Stinson in many ways as how he was portrayed in the second episode.

Final thoughts:

I do think that this show has some potential. However I only hope it doesn't stretch it out too long that it becomes boring or predictable. When they showed clips of all guys Sophie meets that day it included Charlie and Sid too, I feel that would be out of character for both guys as well as Sophie to get together as they seem deeply committed to their respective partners. The laughter track is annoying. The first two episodes were similar in many ways to the original. I think there will be lot of moments where it'll feel like the writers have taken inspiration from HIMYM. Otherwise overall the show is pretty great, the jokes are somewhat funny, definitely not HIMYM funny but still funny. 

As of today, there are four episodes out on Hulu and Disney Plus Hotstar in India. The new episodes are out every Thursday at 10:30 am on Disney Plus Hotstar.