Commentary: ‘How I Met Your Mother’ spin-off not a legendary idea

Brandon Klein
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 04:43:39 +0000
Campus, how i met your dad, how i met your mother, legendary, neil patrick harris, spin-off

Barney (Neil Patrick Harris, left), Robin (Cobie Smulders) Ted (Josh Radnor) Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) talk in a scene from CBS’ ‘How I Met Your Mother.’ CBS recently confirmed a pilot will be shot for a spin-off of the show titled ‘How I Met Your Dad.’
Credit: Courtesy of Ron P. Jaffe / CBS

Challenge accepted! CBS has given the green light to shoot the pilot for a “How I Met Your Mother” spin-off. According to reports, the show “How I Met Your Dad” will be a new show with new characters and even a new bar to hang out in.

As a huge fan of the original sitcom, I’m really skeptical of how the spin-off will perform especially with Cristin Milioti, who plays the mother and has been underutilized in the ongoing ninth season of “HIMYM,” not taking the lead role. Aside from that, I came up with three reasons why a spin-off would fail:

Past Spin-Offs’ levels of success ?

We definitely don’t need Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris) to give us a fake history lesson about the success of spin-offs. The show “Frasier” was a successful spin-off of the ‘80s and early ‘90s sitcom “Cheers” that ran for eleven years. However, let’s not forget “Joey,” the spin-off from “Friends,” which was canceled after two seasons because of low ratings (true story). Essentially, it can go either two ways: a great TV show that complements the franchise or a bad blemish that’s best left forgotten.

Stinson Out?

It’s obvious that Barney Stinson will not be in the spin-off. If “HIMYM” was a huge party that happened only one night with Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) as the guest of honor, then Barney was the life and soul of it. Barney’s character really helped the sitcom meet the success it’s had (just imagine the show without him — a frightening thought), but how could that same level of energy exist in the spin-off? It would be really hard to create the right character along with finding the right actor to meet such high expectations. Sorry, fans, but say your farewells to all the catchphrases, legendary stories and the playbook of made-up relationship rules after the ninth and final season of “HIMYM” wraps up.

Redundancy ?

Like all spin-offs, the biggest challenge is maintaining the connection with the original sitcom while also becoming its own show. While “HIMYD” would follow a female perspective of finding the one, the show could dangerously fall into the same formula created by the original. If anything, “HIMYM” was about Ted Mosby hoping to find the right girl only to become attached to the wrong girl; the irony of it all is because he held out so long for the wrong woman that he eventually meets the mother. However, the plot for “HIMYD” needs to go beyond that so the show doesn’t feel like a repeat of the original sitcom.

In the end, it all comes down to premise of the pilot and hopefully the spin-off will be, like its predecessor, successful. At the very least, I just hope they reveal where on earth the pineapple came from.