This week's How I Met Your ...

• Mar 6, 2006 03:00 AM ET
• by Matt Roush

Question: This week's How I Met Your Mother episode (Feb. 27) was easily the best of the season. I started thinking about why this show isn't a bigger hit. The show has great characters, better-than-average humor, and Seinfeld-esque catch phrases, and still nothing. Why do you think it's not a bigger hit? Do you think it's on the wrong network? Do you think it'll ever break out?
Answer: Lots and lots of mail flooded in about this sleeper sitcom after Monday's episode, which was one of the better ones of the season. (Focused in large part on Barney's surprising backstory: basically, how he learned to suit up. More on him later.) Actually, it's probably a good thing that Mother has lived its first season pretty much under the radar. This is very much a show that has been finding its way in fits and starts through an uneven yet highly enjoyable first year. If it was overhyped, which on the strength of its sensational pilot it could have been, the impatience with its growing pains would have been louder. In its offbeat setup and style, it may seem closer in spirit to a Fox or NBC sitcom, but CBS has the resources to nurture the show on Mondays, so even being a moderate hit should be enough to guarantee its survival. I'm not sure it will ever hit Seinfeld heights, but it's a solid show with one, maybe two, breakout characters.

Consider this from Chandra: "Recently, watching the first new episode in several weeks of How I Met Your Mother, I couldn't help but wonder if I'm the only viewer who thinks the creators should dump all the characters except for Barney and Robin and rename the show The Adventures of Barney and Robin or just Barney and Robin for short. I mean, that dynamic duo is utterly awesome in its utter awesomeness. This first hit me during the last new episode in early February, where Robin suited up and showed Barney a good time 'old-girl style.' Did you get a gander at those guys throwing down with the kiddies in paintball? Classic! How is it that two such engaging and side-splittingly funny characters wind up playing second banana to the unbelievably boring and hopelessly forgettable central character, Ted, instead of the other way around? Even Marshall-of-the-big-boned-mayonnaise-family and his fiancée (whose name I can never remember, so let's just call her Willow) are lackluster. But Barney and Robin rock 24/7/365! How could the show end up this way? Do you think the creators, or whoever, will eventually wise up and revamp the show to focus on the real stars, Barney and Robin? Every character in all my other favorite sitcoms of the moment, like Scrubs, The Office, My Name Is Earl and the fairly recently departed Spin City (which I just discovered in syndication), are hilarious in their own right, with no second fiddles whatsoever in the laughs department. So what's up with the unevenness of How I Met Your Mother? Am I on to something here, or should I just shut up and suit up?"

I'm too nice to say shut up, but I'll say again that unevenness often comes with the territory in a show's first season, especially a sitcom. (Earl being an exception this season; that show got it right and has kept it going from the start.) Ted is Mother's every-schmo entry point to a world of characters who even he would concede are funnier and more interesting than he is. No question that Barney and Robin are the most appealing people in this universe, but if we're lucky, they'll draw new and funnier characters into Ted's orbit as time goes on. Mother has the makings of a future classic, or it might just settle for being a solid B-plus diversion. These days, that's looking pretty good to me, though I'd love for the show to realize its full potential (with dumping everyone but Barney and Robin not being an option, but not a terrible idea).