The How I Met Your Mother spinoff isn’t quite How I Met Your Dad, but almost.

During How I Met Your Mother‘s seven-season lifespan, the central question on everybody’s lips was always: Who is the mother?

Misdirect upon misdirect allowed us to explore Ted and his friends’ crazy adventures, until at last, the Mother was revealed — and then she died.

It is maybe not so surprising, therefore, that Carter Bays and Craig Thomas’ planned spin-off, How I Met Your Dad — which would chronicle the early lives of Tracy (Cristin Milioti) — failed to pick up steam at CBS.

But now, another version of the same idea may be in the works, from the duo that brought This Is Us into our lives.

Related: How I Met Your Mother retrospective: Why Ted had to end up with Robin

According to Deadline, Isaac Attacker and Elizabeth Berger will be overseeing the day-to-day operations of the show, with Bays and Thomas serving as executive producers.

The new series, now titled How I Met Your Father, would not follow Tracy, but instead focus on a brand new set of characters — but now from a female perspective.

In that way, it’s not so much a spin-off as it is a reboot, the story existing in isolation but with the same storytelling devices: Retelling, misremembering facts and details, misdirection, and a touching story of friends going through life together at its center. (It’s actually a bit reminiscent of what This Is Us is doing, by setting up future events and then looking back to how the characters got to that place.)

How I Met Your Mother was a hugely successful sitcom, its format refreshing and interesting. It makes sense to try repeating that success — and maybe improving certain aspects — but so much of what made HIMYM work was its excellent casting and characters. It’ll be interesting to see if Father can recapture the magic.