*by "best", I mean my favorite. "Arrested Development" still holds that crown.
Recently, my girlfriend and I finished rewatching all of the aired episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" (henceforth referred to as HIMYM, because How I Met Your Mother is annoying as shit to type), which is currently about to wrap up its sixth season, which also happens to be its sixth quality season. Before I go on, let me put that into perspective. "The Office," one of the most highly regarded shows on the air, is currently in its seventh season, and it has been 3+ years since a quality one. So, there.
HIMYM revolves around the lives of five friends who live in New York City. The show starts with Ted Mosby (2030 version is voiced by Bob Saget, present time version is played by Josh Radnor) telling a story to his children in the year 2030 about how he met their mother. The story begins when two central characters, Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) (college sweethearts who have been together for 9 years) get engaged. Marshall's college/current roommate and best friend, Ted, decides that he wants to find "the one" and settle down when he hears of Marshall and Lily's engagement. It is at this point that he sees a girl (Robin, played by Cobie Smulders) from across the bar (McLaren's, one of the central locales of the show) and falls quickly for her. The very first episode ends with a twist, however, when it is revealed by 2030-Ted that this is the day he met "Aunt Robin", one of his best friends and an honorary aunt to his kids. Right off the bat you know that Robin isn't The One.
A small aside: This is where most people decide what kind of show this is going to be for them. In my discussions around town and the internet, I have discovered that most people decided that their primary concern was going to be The Mother, and her ultimate identity. This is a mistake. This first episode is meant to give the audience the groundwork for the eventual (and still yet to happen) reveal of the mother, but at the same time let them know that The Mother isn't the most important thing in the show. Even from the very first episode, the audience is supposed to know that the show is about Ted, and how his journey through his late-20s and early-30s allows him to grow into the person he needs to be and arrive at the point in time when he meets The Mother. People seem to have a hard time understanding this, which is one reason I hear a lot of hate for this show because it "takes too long to go anywhere." Readers, keep this in mind if you ever decide to start watching. Anyway...
The first season deals with Ted's newfound obsession with getting married and gives the audience some insight into this group of friends. When the show starts, Marshall, a kid from St. Cloud, Minnesota, is a law student at NYU, studying to become an environmental lawyer, because his dream is to work for the NRDC (National Resource Defense Council). His fiancée, Lily, is a kindergarten teacher who went to college to be an artist, but was never able to realize her dream. Ted is a mid-level architect at a New York architecture firm who wants nothing more than to design a skyscraper in the NYC skyline. Robin is a local TV news reporter working for Metro News 1 (the lowest rated metro news channel) with dreams of hosting a cable news show. The 5th member of the group is Barney (played spectacularly by Neil Patrick Harris), a suit-wearing, scotch-drinking, cigar-smoking playboy whose only initial goal in life is to make money, have fun and get laid. Now that you have the groundwork for the characters...
I am going to try to stay away from specific plot points in order to keep from spoiling new viewers, but I may spoil a thing or two here and there in order to get my point across. HIMYM is an absolutely phenomenal show for several reasons. First, it is the most relatable show on television. Second, it is marketed as a generic sitcom (which turns off as many viewers as it brings in), but it is very, very far from a generic sitcom. Third, the portrayal of these five friends and how they mature and change as they grow older is spot on. Fourth, it is absolutely hilarious, but can still handle hard subjects and heavy material without feeling heavy handed. Starting with #4, here is some more detail.
#4 - It is absolutely hilarious, but can still handle hard subjects and heavy material without feeling heavy handed.
It's a comedy. It's supposed to be funny. You're supposed to laugh. But what really makes this show amazing in the pure-comedy category is that it is a perfect balance of many different styles of comedy. It has lots of accessible sitcom-style humor, lots of referential in-jokes and call-backs without going too over the top (while I adore the shit out of "Community," it is definitely guilty of this), lots of character-based humor, some physical comedy, lots of clever pop-culture references and throwbacks, and plenty of what I like to call "slow burn" humor (jokes that are seeded early and teased out until exploding into hilarious moments). At the same time, the show deals with a lot of heavy material. Some examples include: several divorces, cheating, family deaths, abandonment issues, unknown paternity, marriage, depression, unemployment, debt, fate vs. choice. HIMYM doesn't handle these subjects like a normal sitcom, either through some heavy-handed moral message (ala Saved by the Bell) or an inappropriate and distasteful amount of humor (ala Two and A Half Men), but instead manages to balance the issue with an appropriate level of humor. The death of a character's father, for example, is handled with almost zero direct humor, while a mini-storyline about credit-card debt is loaded with direct comedy. Balance is the essence of everything on HIMYM.
#3 - The portrayal of these five friends and how they mature and change as they grow older is spot on.
Every single person on HIMYM has changed drastically since their introduction in the very first episode, yet every person still feels true to the characters we met in that first episode. Granted, there have been some minor hiccups along the way, primarily in regards to the first couple of seasons, but I give the writers/creators a free pass for this due to the show's fate being in a constant state of flux (HIMYM was a last-second renewal for its first 3 seasons, leading to a lot of rushed storylines). Once the show settled into some comfortable ratings and earned itself a near indefinite lifespan from CBS, the continuity really cemented itself. Anyway. Every character on the show has dealt with some sort of life-altering event during the course of the show, both internal and external, yet none of the situations has felt forced. The growth of the characters feels completely natural. I credit this both to the writing staff, and to the cast. This cast is phenomenal. There isn't a single actor I would want replaced with someone else. As a testament to that, even though I don't particularly care for Lily and occasionally think she's a bad person, I wouldn't ever call her inconsistent, poorly written or a bad character, and I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone other than Alyson Hannigan playing her. This is why the show gets better on repeated viewings. Much of the character humor is lost on the audience in the first season, simply because you haven't gotten to know them yet. When you go back and watch it again, the original stuff you laughed at is just as funny as the first time, and now you have additional character-based humor to laugh at. It just gets better and better.
#2 - It is marketed as a generic sitcom (which turns off as many viewers as it brings in), but it is very, very far from a generic sitcom.
I went over most of this in #4, but here are some additional thoughts. CBS's marketing would lead one to believe that HIMYM is in the same category as the rest of CBS's cranially cadaverous lineup of 2.5 Men, The Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly and $#!% My Dad Says. It is absolutely not. Just watch it and you'll see what I mean. I will warn you, the first season feels very sitcom-y, but the show quickly grows out of that. Just trust me and give it a chance. Without further ado, the most important reason the show is the best:
#1 - It is the most relatable show on television.
I didn't really drink in college. I have been single for a grand total of fourteen months since I was 16. I don't really go to bars. I don't womanize. I'm not married. I'm in no rush to get married. I have no desire to have kids now (and am slowly losing the desire to have them at all). I don't live in NYC. One would think that I would have absolutely nothing in common with these characters yet, somehow, I relate with these characters more than any other in any form of media. Sometimes, I feel like I am Ted, or Marshall, or even Robin at times. The stories that are told, the decisions that the characters make and the themes that are explored are universal. Every Single Person Who watches this show will find at least one character to whom they relate exceptionally well (and have friends who basically are the other characters). On top of this, phrases and sayings from this show will enter your every-day vocabulary, simply because so many of the things those phrases and sayings are based on have happened to every single one of us at some point. A few examples include The Chain/Circle/Pyramid of Screaming, Graduation Goggles (my personal favorite), The Reacher & The Settler, The Hot/Crazy Scale, The Cheerleader Effect and Revertigo. If you can't already figure it out and want to know what these mean, watch the show. They will all make perfect sense and give you a new way to describe the situations you get yourself into.
I could go into waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more detail about how amazing this show is, but I can't without spoiling the shit out of it. Hey, another reason it's so awesome. It's a comedy where the viewers actually care about the storyline and would be pissed if something were spoiled for them (HIMYM is full of cliff-hangers and plot twists. How many comedies can say that?).
Everyone needs to watch this show. And if by some crazy miracle you watch the show and don't find it at all relatable, then I may question your humanity. You heard it here first. If you don't relate in some way to HIMYM, you are a reptoid.
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