How I Met Your Mother

2000s tv sitcom

Ted Mosby tells his kids the story how he met their mother, but he is tells it in very small bits - each week a different part of his past that inolves his best friends Marshall, Lily, Robin and Barney.

In some ways it is unimpressive and uninventive comedy series, full of one-dimensional characters and predictible jokes. On the other hand the creators have experimented with different ways of setting the timeline of events, which is unusual and sometimes interesting (f.e. Ted wakes up after a wild night and each person he meets tells him a small part of that night that he forgotten), but it doesn’t really add much value to the whole project and also is quite similiar to what was already done in f.e. Coupling few years earlier.

In general the story lacks what it takes to become great - good jokes. Some of the episodes were entertaining, but it’s hard to spot any that could be called great. The story lacks any emotions - it is in some way leading toward telling the kids how Ted finally met their mother, but since it’s been going on for over 5 years it’s hard to still keep viewers interested.

Also the characters used in the series are, least said, underdeveloped. Barney is a womanizer and... that’s pretty much it. Ted is architect and... can’t make up his mind. Marshall is some kind of lawyer and... he is married to Lily. Lily on the other hand is working with kids and... she is married to Marshall. Robin is news reporter in TV and... she is Canadian. It is easy for creators to keep the characters not completely defined, so they could just burst with something unique about them (like Robin beeing teen popstar), but most of the time all the characters just seem exactly the same (except for Barney who is playing the same role all the time, which is tiring after a while).

Rating	3.6
Funny	3 / 10
Entertaining	3 / 5
Characters	2 / 5
Nonrepetitive	1 / 5