While How I Met Your Mother will be coming to an end in March, fans of the show are gearing up for the potential new spinoff show, How I Met Your Dad. As co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas have repeated over and over, it will be an entirely new show with a new cast of characters and no connection to the current series.
It stands to reason that How I Met Your Dad will be similar in storytelling format to HIMYM, maybe not so much with the “Kids, this is the time I…”, but we could expect comparable themes in the overall structure of the show. There are some elements from HIMYM that the writers can pull from to create an equally outstanding HIMYD without suffering the sophomore slump of their second series, or lack in quality storytelling.
These are what should and should not pop up on How I Met Your Dad – given it is picked up for the fall season.
What we want to see
The tiny quirks that give each character their uniqueness
Whether it’s Barney’s numerous catchphrases and ridiculous rules, or the mystery of his job (though, that running gag recently ended), he has been one of the most entertaining comedy characters in the past decade. If there’s one thing the Bays/Thomas team knows, it’s how to create unique characters who stand out from the typical character tropes – their characters are multidimensional. That, and they made one of their characters a retired Canadian pop-star.
Characters with vastly different stories, but still can connect with each other
Marshall, Lily and Ted met in college, but Barney sort of shimmied his way into their group, and then well, Robin’s entry was murky and sometimes messy, but even Marshall has found a way to bond with her through their love of hockey. In the end: they all love each other.
Set us up for the long haul
In HIMYM, once they realized they’d get a season 2, they started crafting an elaborate story that would unfold for seasons. Not every plot line was tied up – it took them seven seasons to just barely address the pineapple – but they’ve deliberately dropped hints about the mother for eight full seasons before revealing her, and over the next three months, we hope we see how all of the dots connect.
For instance: we know the Mother was in Ted’s first class he taught, she left her super-symbolic yellow umbrella at the same bar as him one St. Patricks day, and she was once the roommate of Ted’s ex, Cindy (Rachel Bilson). New York City might be a small island, but there are millions of people there to make all of the aforementioned just coincidences that Bays and Thomas won’t mention again.
The fun games (or something similar)
Haveeee you met Ted?, the slap bet and ensuing Slapsgivings, was Marshall drunk or a kid? Never in recent collective television memory has a show introduced so many ridiculous games, bets, and revelry. They are memorable and a quality that only HIMYM fans truly appreciate, and we’re sure we’d love to see similar – but different – types of games in HIMYD. Challenge accepted!
Trademark heart and humor within scenes of the same episode
This show can have its main character attacked by a goat, forget a woman’s name, but it can also pack an emotional punch like no other.
The two most notable examples of this season 6’s episode, “Bad News” and season 7’s “Symphony of Illumination.” Marshall’s dad’s death and Robin’s struggle to accept she won’t have kids, respectively, whopped us in the gut with tear-jerking moments. It shows the characters are real (as real as you, the viewer, are willing to accept) and gives us reasons to root for them when times get tough.
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