How I Met Your Father Episodes 1 and 2 Review

 Hey everyone! Sorry about my lack of posts these last, almost, two weeks. I needed to take a break for a bit. I'm back now though and I'm excited for what's coming next for the blog. I've got some pretty cool ideas coming up. Today though I'm here to talk about the first two episodes of How I Met Your Father that stars Hilary Duff, which is a spin-off of the 2005-2014 sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. I know the first season is almost finished on Hulu in the US, but, it's just starting on Disney+ here in Canada, so that's why I'm only talking about it now. So without further ado, let's get into it.

I was eighteen and still in high school when How I Met Your Mother started. While I couldn't really relate to any of the characters yet, I still enjoyed it because of the basic premise of finding true love. It wasn't until the final couple of seasons that I started to relate to most of the characters. With How I Met Your Father I can relate to most of the characters. I say most, because while I'm in my thirties like the majority of this cast is, obviously I don't have the same type of job that they do. I'm not a bartender or a photographer or doctor or anything like that. I'm a writer/reviewer/blogger and I live in my parents's basement in Canada, and yet I find it just as difficult to find romantic love as some of these characters do. 

While the basic premise of this show is the same as the original, there's a bar, a group of friends, with one hopeless romantic intent on finding true love, there are also some vast differences. It's a more racially diverse cast, with a Latin woman, an Indian man, and an Asian woman, there are actually more women in the main cast than in the original, and there's a Lesbian character, which would not even have been considered in the original series. Also, there's no Barney analogue in this series. I mean there is, in Charlie, played by Tom Ainsley, but he's not entirely a Barney analogue. In fact the only similarity between Charlie and Barney, aside from their names both ending in an 'e' sound, is they both wear expensive suits. Basically because the misogynistic nature of the Barney character doesn't work in 2022 and I'm glad that not only do the producers of the show realize this, but the studio producing it and the streaming platform airing it do too.

How I Met Your Father is about a woman named Sophie, played by Hilary Duff, who hopes to find true love someday, but not in the same obsessed way that Ted did in the original show, which, again, doesn't work in 2022 like it did in 2005. Especially if this show goes nine seasons like How I Met Your Mother did. Of course she's joined by her roommate, Valentina, played by Francia Raisa, Valentina's boyfriend, Charlie, who I've already mentioned, and their new friends, Jesse, played by Chris Lowell, Sid, played by Suraj Sharma, and Jesse's sister, Ellen, played by Tien Tran.

I love the cast of this show. I watched Hilary Duff on Lizzie McGuire and in the Disney Channel Original Movie, Cadet Kelly with my sister in the early 2000s, I remember seeing Chris Lowell on Veronica Mars, and I'm familiar with Suraj Sharma because he played Rakesh, Miles's friend on God Friended Me. The rest of the main cast is unfamiliar to me, Though Tien Tran's sister,Tram-Ahn, played Tina on the children's mystery series, Ghostwriter from 1992 to 1995, so that's cool.

The framework of the older version of the main character telling the story to their children is reused here, with Kim Cattrall playing older Sophie in the year 2050. Though while we saw Ted's kids, but never Old Ted, played by Bob Saget, it's reversed here. We see Older Sophie, but not her son. Which makes it easier, because, well, they had to film the last scene with the kids in it, during the pilot of How I Met Your Mother so that if the show went on for ten years or more, the kids wouldn't have aged to the point where they aren't kids anymore when the series finale was filmed.

I like all of the characters on the show, but I think my favourite so far has to be a threeway tie between Jesse, Valentina, and Ellen. Jesse is more like Ted than Sophie is, but he's not as neurotic as Ted was. Valentina is the all over the place, destructive best friend, but not in the same destructive way that Barney was in the original show. And she's pretty great because she complements Sophie in almost the same way that Marshall complemented Ted in the original show. Because not only do they encourage each other, but they get each other into trouble too, which is hilarious so far.

Honestly, I love this show so far. It's not the biggest show out there, nor is it gripping, but it's fun to watch. It's also something I needed right now. I watch so many shows that are intense and action packed and pretty heavy in their subject matter that it's nice to watch a show that's funny and generally about nothing in particular. Plus it's an old style sitcom complete with a laugh track, which I love. The thing about many of these reboots, spin-offs, and continuations of old comedies, is that they lose the laugh track or the comedy aspect altogether. Like Bel-Air, the reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, isn't a comedy/sitcom anymore, it's a teen drama, which makes no sense to me at all. So, I am glad that How I Met Your Father is continuing the format of it's predecessor, because it's very welcomed by me. 

Anyways guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'm working on a review for the 2018 novel, Arrow: Fatal Legacies, which serves as a bridge between seasons 5 and 6 of the former CW comic book based series, Arrow. So look for that coming out in the very near future. Until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you later. Take care.