After 208 episodes and nine seasons, Ted Mosby will finally meet the Mother he has spent so much time talking about. CBS’s sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, will be coming to an end this month. While many viewers will be saying goodbye to the show that has been broadcast for the past nine years, it marks the beginning for the main character, Ted Mosby, and his future wife.
Premiering in Sept. 2005, the sitcom How I Met Your Mother follows the social and romantic lives of five friends in present-day Manhattan. The series is different from other shows because it is narrated from 2030 as a future version of Ted recounts his late 20’s to his children. Present-day Ted Mosby, played by Josh Radnor, lives with his friends while working as an architect. Ted’s best friend Marshall Eriksen, an environmental lawyer, and close friend Lily Aldrin, a kindergarten teacher and aspiring artist, are happily married in the sitcom. Also present is the eccentric, playboy Barney Stinson and news anchor Robin Scherbatsky. The group of five friends are based on the two show creator’s real lives. Ted and Marshall are loosely based on the creators, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas respectively. After writing for David Letterman, the two began pitching sitcoms. After their first failed, they had another idea.
“But the other idea was just, ‘Well, let’s write about our friends and the stupid stuff we did in New York,’” Bays said.
When the show first went into production, only two of the five actors were well known. Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney Stinson, was most known for playing teenage physician Dougie Howser on Dougie Howser M.D., a stint of movies in the late 1990s, and doing Broadway in the early 2000s was on the comeback of revitalizing his career. Neil Patrick Harris was joined by Alyson Hannigan, who plays Lily Aldrin. Hannigan was most known for playing Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The three others, Josh Radnor, Jason Segal, and Colbie Smulders were widely unknown at the time.
“I had to choose between three projects . . . I decided to go with How I Met Your Mother, which was the best call. I would’ve been so pissed off if I had gone the other way, don’t you think?” Smulders said.
How I Met Your Mother has consistently kept a number of clever gags throughout its history, revolving around Barney. The lines, “Legen . . . wait for it . . . dary” and “Have you met Ted?” are used by him throughout the series. Barney’s established Bro Code, his dying love for suits, and his playbook documents the different ways he has won over girls also carry throughout the series.
Other antics include a slap bet between Marshall and Barney, Robin’s past as a popstar, and the frequent euphemisms to cover up culturally sensitive issues. “Eating a sandwich” is a cover for smoking marijuana, and a thumbs up is cover for giving someone the middle finger. With the finale coming up, it is expected that fans have not seen the last of these antics.
Many fans were surprised to be introduced to the Mother during last season’s finale. Without any proper announcements, Christin Millioti was shown to be the actress playing The Mother. Most known for her roles on Broadway, including the Tony winning Once, it was announced shortly after that Millioti would be a regular cast member for the last season.
Taking even more fans by surprise, it was announced that the entirety of the final season would take place during the 72 hour weekend of Barney and Robin’s wedding. With this set in place, the final season has slowly given us glimpses of Ted and The Mother in the future, including their first date and Ted’s proposal. Fans have also seen how Lily, Barney, Marshall and Robin have met The Mother. The only one who has yet to directly meet her is Ted. The 16th episode of the current season titled “How Your Mother Met Me,” connected all of the loose ends left throughout the series by focusing solely on the Mother and how her life has coincided with Ted’s throughout the years. The scene Millioti auditioned for actually turned out to be her last scene, when the Mother meets Ted.
With its two-part finale airing March 31, How I Met Your Mother is finally closing its book of laughs. With a final slap, the marriage of Barney and Robin, learning The Mother’s name, and finally seeing what the title of the show promises, everyone’s questions will finally be answered. When talking about the end of the series, Thomas reflected on how they have had this planned out for years.
“We have not changed the very end of the series at all. In fact, we shot part of it back in 2006, before Ted’s kids got much older! We just looked at that footage, which will factor into the end of the series—it totally worked and was kind of haunting to watch! Shot 8 years ago and it will now help end our series on March 31, 2014,” Thomas said.
Fans will be pleased to know a spin-off series of How I Met Your Mother titled How I Met Your Dad was recently announced to be greenlight by CBS. Being a brand-new story with new characters and a new voice at its center, both Bays and Thomas are behind it’s creation. Sally, the main star will be played by the indie-darling most known for last year’s Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig. So buckle up for the next installment of a Bays and Thomas sitcom.