How I Met Your Mother is the New Friends

Fans of Friends rejoice! You have been brought a more than acceptable replacement for your viewing pleasure. The new Friends is How I Met Your Mother. Let's look at the group dynamics. We have Marshall and Lily (played by Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan) who form the stable couple who's future together is unshakable. This mirrors Chandler and Monica's relationship, who marry with few real obstacles to overcome. In contrast to this, we have Ted and Robyn (Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders), the couple who are madly in love but just can't make it work, and thus split up but stay friends. Just like Ross and Rachel. Last but not least we have Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), the man whore. But, whereas Barney is witty (and loves to drag out words like legen...dary!) Joey is dim witted yet lovable. And just as Rachel and Joey come to have feelings for each other, Robyn and Barney sleep together towards the end of the third season. And did I mention that both shows take place in New York City?

The only person missing a counter part is Phoebe, and lets face it, she didn't really fit in with the rest of the Friends anyway. She was a ditzy hippie who thought that her dead mother came back as a cat. Who does that? It is unfortunate that the writers never attempted to at least explain how Phoebe came to be a Friend. We are just told that she and Monica were roommates, but Phoebe couldn't handle Monica's obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and moved out. How did they come to be roommates in the first place? How did they meet. The certainly could not have been brought together by Monica's appreciation of Smelly Cat. Sure, it has come to be an iconic song, but it's pretty bad.

So maybe How I Met Your Mother isn't a copy of Friends. Maybe it's a much improved version of the classic T.V. show. The biggest difference is that the new group is starting out older and more ready to accept the challenges of growing older. I was personally touched by the episode "Arrivederci Fiero" from season two. In this episode the group humorously reminisces about their experiences in Marshall's first car. And though his car was a pile of junk, Marshall found it hard to let go. But after taking the time to remember all of the good times he had in that car, and after mourning the loss of an item with which he had a serious emotional attachment, Marshall said goodbye to his beloved car. You only have one first love, you know.

Although our new group is making big steps and life altering decisions much faster than our Friends did, they also have light hearted moments too. Far from being a self-important drama, How I Met Your Mother is a laugh riot. The journey our new group takes is littered with comedic gold, and it will only be a matter of time before people are making references to the show in their daily lives and the actors are demanding hundreds of thousands per episode. For anyone who has experienced Friends withdrawal I recommend a 30 minute session of How I Met Your Mother once a week. Feel free to share with others.