Spin-offs are controversial, see how “How I Met Your Father” creates parallels to its predecessor. PHOTO CREDIT: TV Insider
“How I Met Your Mother” is one of my favorite shows, I love a good sitcom and have a great appreciation for the clever writing in the show.
When I saw that a spin-off was coming to Hulu, I immediately knew I would binge-watch it.” How I Met Your Father” takes place in New York City, centered around a group of friends in their 20s, trying to navigate their love lives and careers.
Similar to How I Met Your Mother, the new spin-off is narrated from the older self. In this case, we see our main character, Sophie, as her older self played by Kim Cattrall.
The show begins with Sophie, who sits down on a phone call with her son. However, instead of only seeing the kids, and hearing older Ted’s voice, like in the original, we only see older Sophie and hear the son’s voice over the call.
This is important because it hides the appearance of the kid. The cast of “How I Met Your Mother” was predominantly, if not only, white and so were Ted’s kids, so it automatically ruled out any person of color as the mother to Ted’s kids.
However, in “How I Met Your Father,” the cast includes a slightly more diverse crew, so keeping the appearance of the kid from us kept the mystery of who the father is.
If you decide to give “How I Met Your Father” a watch, I encourage you to push past the first episode. I physically cringed watching them try to set up the plot.
The best way I can describe it is millennials trying hard to prove their youth. They talk about Tinder, Uber and anything else to try to establish relevance. Personally, it was hard to watch.
At the end of the first episode, it is revealed that two of the characters, Jesse and Sid, live in the same apartment from “How I Met Your Mother.” They even tie in that they bought it from “an older couple of the Wesleyan alumni page” and they left their iconic swords above the fireplace.
During the first episode, we follow young Sophie, played by Hilary Duff, as she is meeting up with a Tinder date. Her Uber driver is Jesse, who brings along his best friend, and roommate, Sid.
The three of them talk, very unnaturally, about Sophie’s 87 Tinder dates and about Sid’s plan to propose to his girlfriend of many years.
Through the season we see parallels from the original plot to the new show. Like a proposal on the first episode. Sophie has a will-they-won’t-they relationship with Jesse like Ted and Robin. They get together by Sophie cheating on a relationship that is safe, but she and Jesse haven’t gotten together yet.
We see other themes continue, like Ted’s hopeless romanticism, and his belief in the universe that pushes people in the right direction.
They tie in some old characters like The Captain and Becky going through a divorce. This side story sets up some possibilities for a different romance for Sophie.
We even get an explanation for the pineapple incident, a loose-ended story from the first season of the original series.
In the last episode of the season, Colbie Smulders returns as her character Robin Sherbatsky. She meets Sophie when she finds herself in Maclaren’s Bar and gives her love advice she wishes she had listened to earlier on in her life.
The return of Robin gave me hope that there will be more guest appearances from the original cast. It also gave me some resolution to character development that was severely lacking for Robin in “How I Met Your Mother.”
Despite its cringy attempt to be relevant, “How I Met Your Father” has done a good job connecting the two plots and following familiar themes of the original series, while still keeping things new.