sammi says

Over this long Christmas break and many days when I was deathly ill (deathly is exaggerating, but it certainly felt like it at times) I spent my time watching every single episode of "How I Met Your Mother." Over the years I have seen the occasional episode of "How I Met Your Mother," but never kept up because I felt like I missed out on too much of the inside jokes. Well, not anymore. I'm fully caught up and wondering why there's a lack of hype surrounding this show.

I'm thinking that an older demographic (the CBS crowd) are the ones watching when really it should be popular among the 18-24 demo. It's about a group of five 30-somethings living in New York City trying to figure out their lives and usually centers around dating and drinking. Sure, we've seen tons of TV shows with this premise but "How I Met Your Mother" offers something different.

Every episode is centered around a story and is told in the way that we would tell our friends about a crazy/absurb/funny/drunken situation that has happened to us. It's told out of order and sometimes details are forgotten or exaggerated. The episodes are narrated by Bob Saget, who plays the voice of the main character, Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), in the future telling his kids the story of how he met their mother. This gives the show a little something extra, setting it apart from the "Friends" and "Seinfelds." When the story involves the gang smoking weed, "we were smoking weed" is replaced by "we were eating sandwiches," the names of girls he has forgotten are replaced with "Blah Blah," any details he doesn't want his kids to know are loosely veiled in funny ways.

The characters are so rich and lovable. I love finding out about their backstories in the same way we were all shocked and pleased with the "Friends" flashback episodes (Fat Monica, Loser Ross, Pre-nose-job Rachel etc..). Ladies man, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), was a 20-year-old, virgin-hippie, Anchor-woman, Robin (Cobie Smulders), was a Canadian pop star, Kindergarten teacher, Lily (Alyson Hannigan), was a goth chick, Lawyer, Marshall (Jason Segel), was a Minnesotan, wannabe basketball star nicknamed "Vanilla Thunder," and Architect, Ted, was a pretentious, know-it-all....and hasn't really changed much.

I did find myself comparing the show with "Friends," as I was watching. I've seen every episode of "Friends" a hundred times (ashamed to say that's probably not an exaggeration) and so watching "How I Met Your Mother" was a breath of fresh air. There are a lot of similarities but the jokes are new and the dialogue is modern. Think about it, the first season of "Friends" aired in 1994, a lot has changed since then. You can say and imply a lot more on TV these days, they go out at night and drink beer at a bar instead of coffee at the coffee house and not to mention the whole "Bro" phenomenon, which is a huge part of "How I Met Your Mother."

I definitely recommend "How I Met Your Mother." It's smart, it's funny, and sometimes should be called, "The Neil Patrick Harris Show," because he's so damn hilarious and really an amazing actor. In real life he's as gay as the day is long, but you don't even consider that when he's playing Barney Stinson, the womanizing "bro." In fact, I got a little crush on him about midway through the series. It's in its fifth season but definitely start watching, you can always catch up later.

"How I Met Your Mother" airs on Monday nights at 7pm on CBS. New episodes start on January 11.