How I Met Your Father

Could be watched as a pass-time show but other than that, the whole thing feels forced. Jokes are too flat and it's like they're forcing the audience to like the characters. When in fact, a character doesn't have to be likable in order to be funny. It felt really fake and overplayed to watch their optimism and "millennial" humor.

Although they look so different from each other, I can't really tell the differences between them (personality, job,...). The characters can't show their own attractiveness. Just a bunch of people who are liking, hating, marrying each other. Like Disney's girl series.

Season 1 - 5/10.

While I didn't really have high hopes, I was still intrigued. The concept of HIMYM was just super fun and you can be quite flexible with your story-telling, so perhaps HIMYF will also give us some interesting episodes.

Unfortunately, immediately in the first episode I realized that this is not it. The show just does not have the charm of its predecessor - there is no Barney, there is no Marshall&Lily, there is no Robin and there is no Ted. The new characters are rather bland and boring and definitely not legen-wait for it-dary. The story-telling is not creative and I find the narrator just annoying who also somehow appears in every episode in contrast to the original show. The jokes never managed to make me laugh and many feel rather forced.

The last episode was not bad, however. Especially the part when Robin appeared (which took me by surprise) was nostalgic and actually quite amusing. But so the best part of HIMYF remains HIMYM. This is not a successful spin-off.

The pilot isn't that great but a lot of pilots have been awful - even the Seinfeld and Friends first episodes ain't that great. Remove the connections to its predecessor and give it a shot. It gets its groove better in the second episode. The cast gel well too. The negative reviews are based on having too high of a benchmark.

The laugh track is so obvious and poorly done that it detracts from the story. I gave up after two episodes because I found the laugh track so annoying. If they would re-release this laugh track free I would give it another chance.

The acting is OK though I don't think any of the characters are even close to what How I met Your Mother characters. Some of the characters are just over the top stupid. Perhaps they are better developed in later episodes, but unfortunately I will never know because the annoying laugh track is intolerable. I read somewhere that Hillary Duff was initially against the laugh track. She should have stuck to her instincts.