How I Met Your Mother will return for a ninth and final season, a fact which lead actor Josh Radnor can appreciate.

When Access Hollywood caught up with Radnor at the Sundance Film Festival, the actor shared his relief that How I Met Your Mother would indeed be returning for season 9, saying, “It was great. When there was fear that we were suddenly just going to not come back, it felt a little weird to end like, oh, 10 more episodes and you’re done with this massive chapter of your life.”

Radnor is also relieved to know in advance that this will most likely be the show’s last. “Now we get to have a year where we all know it’s the last time,” he says, “so [we] get a kind of victory lap.”

This way, the ending of the series will be, “nicer, slower,” which will allow the actors to “kind of appreciate things more.”

Update: Neil Patrick Harris has also given an interview in which he talks about the fact that the show now has an enddate. Speaking to MSN, he says, “We have been waiting to find out whether the whole thing was going to end this season or one more. It isn’t, thankfully.” He also says that the writers, “have a really great idea for the entire season that is appropriate for waiting so long for answers.”

Are you happy that How I Met Your Mother will be back this fall? Is it good to know that this will be the final year of the series, allowing the writers to wrap up the story?

And of course, the most important question: does that mean that we’ll meet the Mother in the season 8 finale and spend season 9 getting to know her, or will we not learn her identity until the very end of the show?