It could be a while before two young people, and viewers, learn everything about “How I Met Your Mother.”
One of the most clever conceits of CBS’ new Monday sitcom is its avoidance of an easy, predictable resolution. The show’s romantically hapless hero, Ted — played in the present day by Josh Radnor and in the year 2035 (in voice only) by Bob Saget — tells his two children how he did meet their mom, but in the extended flashbacks, she is never the person they expect. That could ensure the show a long and healthy run, which its initially strong ratings seem to promise.
The pilot episode suggested reporter Robin (Cobie Smulders) would become the titular “Mother,” but ensuing twists have indicated that’s not necessarily so. Ted’s search for love, prompted by the engagement of his earnest friends Marshall and Lily (Jason Segel and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” alumna Alyson Hannigan), isn’t helped much by another comrade: self-assured but reasonably clueless Barney (Neil Patrick Harris, in a big image switch from his earlier days as television’s “Doogie Howser, M.D.”).
However long it takes to tell, virtually any love story has roots in real life, and “How I Met Your Mother” is no different. Carter Bays, the show’s creator and executive producer along with Craig Thomas, confirms the series is “very much based on our lives and where we are in our lives. It initially started with the idea of the title. ‘How I Met Your Mother’ seemed interesting. We liked the idea that all the strange, stupid little things you do add up to a greater story.”
And how long might this particular story take? “It’s more about the journey than the destination,” Thomas says. “We want to explore the process of that search, rather than finding the answer right away.”
In the case of Ted and Robin, he adds, “It’s not ‘Will they?’ or ‘Won’t they?’ between the two of them too much, because we know they don’t, ultimately.”
The first among equals in the ensemble cast, Radnor admits he doesn’t have firsthand experience in the show’s premise, at least not yet. “That’s in progress,” he muses. “I’m not married, but if we do run (a while) and I do end up meeting the mother of my children, I can say the story of how I met their mother is that I was doing a show called ‘How I Met Your Mother’ … which I think would be kind of nifty.”
Even if Robin isn’t destined to become Ted’s significant other, the series has kept her in the thrust of the action so far. Smulders reports the producers told her she wouldn’t be ejected “right away, so I knew that something was going to happen. Personally, I like the idea that they’re going to become friends. There’s a lot more longevity, and there’s just funnier things to do with each other.”
Home-screen veterans Hannigan and Harris also like the funnier aspects of “How I Met Your Mother,” since they can alter their earlier series images. “I wanted to be surrounded by people (who would) bring my game up,” Hannigan says. “As soon as I read the script for this, I was like, ‘I love it.’ I’m so thankful.”
