How I Met Your Father on Disney +: the embarrassing and tasteless return to zap

No one was expecting him, no one was really asking for him, but that’s it, we’re finally going to find out how Sophie met her son’s father. Do you care? That’s good, we too, and that’s the whole problem ofHow I Met Your Fatherwhose ten episodes are available on Disney+ this Wednesday, May 11, 2022.

Derived from the cult sitcom of the early 2000s, this series offers a new gallery of characters and independent stories, all in a New York setting, between huge apartments and regular bars.

A suite prisoner of its model

The problem is that this comedy, which is more or less a follow-up to the original series, does not have much to save the furniture (and it is a fan ofHow I Met Your Mother who tells you). Let’s be honest, we were a bit skeptical about the production of this new season from the start. And viewing the first seven episodes, out of ten, didn’t really make us change our minds. Despite strong references to its elder, but also visible efforts to break away from it, How I Met Your Father doesn’t quite come close to him. Tangled up in a legacy that may be too heavy to bear, the sitcom never manages to create its own identity.

The series thus places the beginning of its plot in 2050, twenty years after the story of Ted Mosby’s love life to his children. This time it’s Sophie, played by Kim Catrall (Sex and the City), who recounts the romantic adventures of his youth to his son, by telephone. We have to show that we are at the cutting edge of technology! We are then situated in the mirror ofHow I Met Your Mother : the framing does not show the child in question as in the original, but simply Sophie, seated comfortably on her sofa, a glass of wine in her hand. A reversal of roles which is not however successful, since it does not ultimately bring much to the narration.

On top of technology (or not)

You don’t have to wait long to see other nods to the band of Ted, Barney, Marshall, Lily and Robin: the credits are obviously similar and it could well be that known apartments or a new version of “Haaaaaave you put Ted? » make their appearance. How I Met Your Father even took over the worst asset of its elder: the pre-recorded laughs, ladies and gentlemen! Didn’t you think you could escape it?

Prisoner of a dated format, the series thus never manages to play with these codes or even to question them. When you have to go after excellent variants of sitcoms like Wanda Visionthis return to the early 2000s hurts a lot.

But How I Met Your Father does not stop at this bygone era. She tries everything for everything, trying to prove with each episode that she is on top of technology, well anchored in 2022. Sophie thus spends her life on Tinder, one of her friends tries to keep a relationship at distance thanks to connected sex toys and a nightclub is even called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out or the fear of missing important news). The second episode even ends on a little moral way “We spend our lives on our phones, but we never enjoy the present moment”.

Too many clichés kill the cliché

If you still doubt the excessively modern aspect of the series, here is a quick presentation of the characters. Sophie, therefore, our heroine present in 2022 and 2050 to act as voice-over narrator, is desperately looking for love on all dating apps. One evening, when she takes an Uber to reach one of her dates, she meets Jesse and Sid, two thirtysomethings. They then tell each other their lives (as in a classic Uber race, of course) then go their separate ways. But disaster, Sophie exchanged her phone with Sid! She will therefore join them in a bar and thus find a new group of great friends.

There is also Valentina, Sophie’s roommate, who presents herself from her first minutes on screen as a « Mexican stylist assistant ». We wouldn’t want to miss the spectacular attempt at diversity on the part ofHow I Met Your Father. From the pilot, she begins a love story with Charlie, a rich British disconnected from reality. Oh wait, Jesse’s adopted-at-birth sister Ellen happens to be a lesbian of Vietnamese descent. Come on, the series ticked all the boxes for inclusivity bingo, great!

More seriously, this succession of roughly assembled shots clearly lacks the subtlety to give the characters a semblance of life. Watching the series, we find ourselves gradually won over by a feeling of intense embarrassment, mixed with a total lack of interest in the adventures of the protagonists.

embarrassing jokes

And the casting does not really manage to rectify the situation. As Sophie, Hillary Duff (Lizzie McGuire) barely manages to exude enough charm to make you become attached to her. At his side, Francia Raisa (Grown-Ish) and Tom Ainsley (Versailles) struggle to break out of their respective stereotypes. Only Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars) arouses enough empathy for one to want to chain the episodes.

But each 25-minute chapter isn’t even funny enough to spark any interest. It’s even rare to just smile at their really embarrassing jokes, where the original series managed to find rather original narratives and situations.

Yet created by the duo Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, who officiated at the writing of the excellent This is Us Where LoveVictorseries How I Met your Father did not really know how to thrill us or even make us want to see the second season, already ordered by Hulu.

In short, this group of New York friends is clearly not worth its two main inspirations: How I Met Your Motheralso available on Disney+, and Friends, on Netflix. If you want to change your mind in front of a good sitcom, we advise you to go back to basics and skip this somewhat tasteless comedy.