The age of nostalgia in the world of TV and film has hit hard in recent years. Everything and their mother has been getting rebooted, revived, rewritten, and adapted to different mediums where it becomes unrecognizable (*cough* Riverdale *cough*). When it comes to sitcoms in particular, it seems like the time where people were willing to invest ten seasons to loyally watching a 30-minute episodic show with laugh tracks and the occasional connecting of storylines is mostly gone. Nowadays, viewers seem to enjoy more shows like The Good Place, where there’s a cohesive storyline and no audience laughter in the background, compared to shows like Friends or Seinfeld.
Because of the ways TV is constantly evolving, it seemed unlikely that a show like How I Met Your Father would’ve been expected to do all that well if it didn’t have the nostalgia and familiar format of the original. That might be why it’s gotten fairly polarizing reactions so far, despite the early success the show seems to have with already being renewed for a season 2 before the first is even finished airing. Many people are willing to give it a chance, maybe because they love the original or because they simply like lighthearted sitcoms, while others are immediately assuming that it’ll be bad and not worth the time. The fact that HIMYF is a spin-off seems to work both in its favor and against it. People are naturally going to compare it to the original to see if it measures up. On the opposite side, viewers are also going to expect HIMYF to fix some of the issues that How I Met Your Mother had, like its lack of diversity and the almost universal hatred for the show’s ending.
So far, HIMYF has taken some of the core essentials connecting it to the original, such as the apartment that served as one of the main sets for HIMYM and the trope of the gang hanging out at a bar. While the show does have its fair share of cliches and the signature cheesiness that the original was so well-known for, it seems like HIMYF is not afraid to stand on its own. The show has the blueprint, along with a list of what not to do. If given the time to properly stretch out the storylines, similar to how old sitcoms were given season upon season, there’s a good chance How I Met Your Father will be able to create something as special as How I Met Your Mother. Hopefully with a better finale!