How I Met Your Father Review

It is intriguing that, following the massive backlash the series finale of CBS’s juggernaut How I Met Your Mother endured, anyone thought it might be a good idea to try again – this time with a mother telling her child how she met their father. But, after several fits and starts*, How I Met Your Father is set to premiere on Hulu on January 18. Is it worth your time? Not in the slightest.

*A pilot entitled How I Met Your Dad was shot in 2014 for CBS but didn’t go, then development of various forms of How I Met Your Father began in 2016, winding their way through various writing staffs and production teams before settling on this version, with Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger as co-creators, writers, and executive producers.

The premise is simple enough: Sophie (played in the future by Kim Cattrall and in the present by Hilary Duff) is telling her unseen son about the night she met his father. Four possibilities are presented, and we see Sophie, her flighty roommate Valentina (Francia Raisa) and her new English boy toy Charlie (Tom Ainsley) meet another trio – Chris Lowell’s Jesse, Suarj Sharma’s Sid, and Tien Tran’s Ellen (who happens to be Jesse’s adopted lesbian sister – we’re reminded of both these things multiple times throughout the first two episodes to no comedic impact) – and promptly start to form a friend group. The bones of the story are similar to the original Mother series, only the characters lack any charm, and the series just isn’t funny. Which is a shame, as the cast deserves better than this dreck.

I suppose it’s a twist in that we know from the jump that the titular father is one of four options – meaning the audience can form attachments to each character in turn and not be forced to discard an option they loved simply because the actor wasn’t available to the series full time. But it also presents the issue of what happens when Sophie dates someone who isn’t one of the father options? She tells her son – in one cringeworthy moment among many – that she went through a number of guys before finally getting together with his father, so I assume we’ll get to see that parade of dates. However, we’ll always know that it’s just a moment on the journey to getting her together with one of the real suitors. Which is a bit of a dramatic suck on the narrative. If the series had proven it had the humor to balance the lack of future narrative stakes, that would be one thing. But boy, it does not.

Much was made of how blindingly white the original series was, and Father does manage to bring in some diversity to its cast. But oof, it doesn’t feel all that organic. Valentina’s introduction highlights that she is Mexican (in contrast to her high society white English himbo of a boyfriend). Ellen constantly reminds us she’s adopted and gay – and that she’s going through a divorce with an as-yet-unseen wife (who was, naturally, the only other lesbian in her small hometown so the pair got together and married, which was a funny joke about 15 years ago – now, not so much). Thankfully Sid hasn’t read us his racial bonefides in the first two episodes, but I’m certain it’s coming down the line (he apparently dropped out of med school at some point – perhaps a disappointed South Asian parent?). There’s a certain amount of world building every series needs to do in its opening episodes, but how tactfully a series lays out its characters and exposition is part of what makes the series work. Here, boy, it’s exhausting.

The writing is doing so much heavy lifting and beating us over the head with telling rather than showing that it’s nearly impossible to sink into the world we are presented with. Couple that with the fact that I didn’t laugh even once during the first four episodes screened for critics and I think it’s safe to declare How I Met Your Father dead on arrival. For a series that just needed to deliver the same sense of irreverent fun and emotional joy of the original – while being willing to pivot and change as needed to avoid the massive finale failure of the same – it’s almost impressive how Father squanders a strong cast of usually likeable comedic actors and absolutely tanks the series with dry, unfunny writing from the jump. Even if you’re a super fan of Mother, skip this one.

How I Met Your Father premieres on Hulu January 18. Four of the initial ten episodes were provided for critics.