How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a show about five friends in their late twenties hanging out at a bar in New York.  It started with a single guy’s search for love, but the central theme running in this whip-smart and endearingly sweet comedy is the close friendship and the bond these five people share.  It follows their escapades as they navigate relationships, love, career ups and downs and making life-changing choices with hilarious and sometimes sad results.  Attaining critical success, this ensemble comedy, for me, is this decade’s Friends.

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM)

This series is narrated by Ted Mosby whose parents never really “talked about anything deep.”  When he asked them how they met, they gave him this very terse story of meeting in a bar, saw each other and that was it.  Realizing that he doesn’t really know anything about them or how they met, Ted vowed that when he had kids, he was gonna tell them everything, especially the story of how he met their mother, hence the title of the show.  In the series, Future Ted (in 2030) sits his son and daughter down to tell them the story of how he met their mom (which to this season, he hasn’t revealed who… but there have been a lot of teasers).  The episodes are in a form of flashbacks as Future Ted recounts his younger days with their Uncle Marshall, Aunt Lily, Aunt Robin and Uncle Barney.  In trying to tell a story that happened over 20 years earlier, he sometimes recall events incorrectly and not in the right chronological order.

The Characters

• Ted Mosby –a romantic architect who realized that he was ready to settle down (find his soulmate, get married and have kids) when his best friend decided to get engaged with his long-time girlfriend
• Marshall Erikson – Ted’s ex-roommate and best friend since college (they were also roommates on campus).  He’s a Columbia Law School graduate who wants to be an environmental lawyer but struggles between doing that or “selling out” and work for “the corporation”
• Neil Patrick Harris – claims to be Ted’s best friend whom he met in MacLaren’s Pub and sees himself as Ted’s wing man.  He is a womanizing, suit-wearing playboy who is deep down a dork.  He works at a big corporation that bought the Goliath National Bank (GNB).  A running gag on the show is that nobody really knows what he does there (there are hints that he’s involved in some super top secret department that deals with high-ranking officials)
• Lily Aldrin – Marshall’s first and only girlfriend (since college) and now his wife.  She is an aspiring artist and kindergarten teacher who is sometimes the voice of reason in the group and can be manipulative to get her way
• Robyn Sherbotsky – Ted’s ex-girlfriend who eventually became part of their close knit group is from Canada who moved to New York to become a journalist.  She is pretty, has an affinity for guns and fighting (more like brawling) and doesn’t want to be in a committed relationship as she wants to focus on her career.  She was a Canadian pop star in her teens known as Robin Sparkles.

Season 7

Last season ended with a major cliffhanger as Barney, the eternal bachelor who is afraid of commitment, is seen getting married in an undisclosed future date.  Barney Stinson fans gasped in surprise as they sure didn’t see this one is coming.  It didn’t reveal who the bride is, making fans to think it’s either Robin or Nora (Robin’s co-worker that Barney liked but they had a falling out.  They met again and it’s indicated that there may be a possible future revival of their relationship).  Executive Producer Craig Thomas hints that it may not even be either of the two as there could be other potential brides we haven’t even met yet.  With Barney, that could be a lot of women.  One thing’s for sure, we haven’t seen the last of Nora as Nazanin Boniadi who plays the character has been is cast as a recurring cast member this season, so does that mean we’ll see a Barney-Nora romance blossom?  Season 7 will also sort of explain how Barney went from being commitment-phobic to getting hitched.

Ted in Season 7 is riding high on his career’s success (it’s incredibly rare for someone in their mid-thirties to get a skyscraper built that they designed), he’s kind of a big shot and gets a feature written on him in New York magazine.  His career might be up but he has just once again broken off with another serious relationship in the previous season.  We wonder of there will be another love interest for him this season?  The back-to-back episode season premiere, will start with be Barney’s wedding and it’s been said that Ted will meet his future wife there, but I doubt if they will show us much of anything.  There have been plenty of teasers in the past on who the mom could be.  And here’s one more teaser, Carter Bays, the co-creator of the show, has said that the wedding is the beginning of Ted’s love story and the end of somebody else’s.  hmmmm… I wonder who?  I hope it’s not Lily and Marshall’s!

Last season ended with Lily and Marshal announcing that they’re having a baby, so we’ll expect a pregnant Lily this season.  With morning sickness, weird food cravings and mood swings, there’s a lot material for the couple’s storyline. Martin Short has also been cast as Marshall’s boss, so this will be funny.

At the end of the last season, it seemed that Robin isn’t completely over Barney.  Producers promise that a lot of juicy stuff is coming up for Robin and Barney this season, describing it as very complicated, exciting, frustrating and fun.  A possible Nora-Barney-Robin love triangle, perhaps?

Season 7 Premiere

September 22, 2011 (THURSDAY), 8/7c on CBS

Season 7 Promo

Trivia

• Future Ted Mosby is voiced by Bob Saget (Full House)
• Kal Penn returns to TV (since  working with the Obama Administration) as Kevin, Robin’s therapist
• The show’s ladykiller, Barney, has an actual blog, you can check it out on CBS.com
• Robin’ music video from her former glory as teen-pop princess Robin Sparkles is posted in actual MySpace page of “Robin Sparkles”
• MacLaren’s is based on a bar in New York City called McGee’s

Starring

• Josh Radnor as Ted Mosby
• Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson
• Alyson Hannigan as Lily Aldrin- Eriksen
• Jason Segel as Marshall Eriksen
• Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky

Official Site

http://www.cbs.com/shows/how_i_met_your_mother/