It seems like a million years ago that CBS had a hit with How I Met Your Mother. The show aired from 2005 to 2014, and according to IMDB it got ten Emmy awards. That’s the hardest thing to believe, considering how much Emmy voters seem to hate sitcoms these days. So, reboot fever being what it is, the show was reimagined as How I Met Your Father, now in its second season on Hulu.
A little bit about the original
Like a lot of sitcoms of the 1990s and 2000s, (*cough*Friends*cough*) a lot of the humor in the original show hasn’t aged well. Back then, we all knew that Neil Patrick Harris’ character Barney was supposed to be a despicable caricature. But, today, his jokes land flat, and the fact that anyone tolerates him at all seems kind of weird.
It’s also worth pointing out, and sorry for bringing this up if you’ve finally forgotten, but this show had one of the worst series finales of all time. It threw away nearly a decade of good will and so disgusted the audience that the show disappeared from public consciousness instantly. I won’t make you relive it other than reminding you that it happened.
And now, the reboot
How I Met Your Father premiered in January, 2022 with Hilary Duff and Kim Catrall playing the central character. Like the original, the reboot uses flash-forwards to frame the story, with Kim Catrall explaining how her younger, more Duff-like, self did things back in the ’20s. Like most shows today, the seasons are shorter and the tone is a little more serious.
I would say overall, though, the show does a decent job. It’s fluffy enough that I had completely forgotten it by the time season two rolled around a couple weeks ago. I had to watch all of season one just to catch up.
This show has managed to largely avoid stunt casting, although you do see a few old characters. The hook is that two of the characters in the new show are subletting the apartment that the old show’s characters lived in. It’s cute and subtle.
In fact, cute and subtle probably describes almost everything about this show. Hilary Duff is known for playing sunshiny, positive characters and there’s nothing wrong with that. The humor is inoffensive and frothy, the plots are low-impact, and the show moves smartly from point to point. It’s a pretty good imitation of what situation comedies used to be, without the socially inappropriate stuff.
Except for one thing.
Why so dark?
In true 2020s style, How I Met Your Father is shot in 4K HDR, and if you watch it that way, it’s so dark that you’ll need to turn the lights off. I’m not talking about Game of Thrones-level darkness, but it’s still distracting and doesn’t serve the sitcom form very well. The show looks better on a phone than it does on a TV, which I suppose makes some sense.
Still, it’s a reminder how far we have to go in understanding how to use HDR. Really, I would argue that HDR isn’t appropriate for a sitcom, because the sitcom form is tied to the earlier days of television. Back then, everything needed a lot of light for the older cameras. We’ve come to expect that sitcoms have a bright look. That’s why the moody look of How I Met Your Father doesn’t work. If you turn off the HDR on your TV, it’s a lot better. I’ll grant you that. But, you shouldn’t have to monkey with your TV’s settings just to be able to see a show you want to watch.
Watch it for yourself
As I said, this show is airing now on Hulu. If you don’t feel like watching the older episodes, you don’t have to. It’s easy enough to jump in at practically any point. It’s not a big burden to start from the beginning, but as I said you might want to watch on your phone or on a non-HDR television.
