The reviews for Hulu's How I Met Your Father are in, and here's how they feel about the HIMYM sequel series. Starting next week on Hulu, a parent will sit down with their child and begin retelling the story of how they came to meet their partner. It's a format familiar to anyone who watched the beloved CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, but the revamped version has a new twist. This time, it's a woman looking back on her romantic trials and tribulations, and her journey takes place in an age where dating apps are more common than spontaneous meetings.
How I Met Your Father has the backing of HIMYM creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, but it's Love Victor's Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger who are leading the show this time. The series follows Sophie (Hilary Duff), a New Yorker entering her 30s who's becoming increasingly disenchanted with the dating process. As she and her friends navigate life, work, and love in the present day, an older Sophie (Kim Cattrall) recalls her adventures in dating to her child, leading up to the eventual reveal of how she met her husband. How I Met Your Father also stars Chris Lowell, Francia Raisa, Tom Ainsley, Suraj Sharma, and Tien Tran.
Ahead of How I Met Your Father's debut next week, the first reviews for the new series have arrived online. Overall, they skew a bit more to the negative side, though there are many that say the show holds promise. It just isn’t quite at the quality of HIMYM just yet. A sampling of the critics' thoughts are below, so feel free to scroll on and see what everyone is saying in their own words.
Darren Franich, EW
Oddly, Father just feels more like a Friends rip-off, one of those Single Guy-ish wannabes where everyone is identically sweet-sarcastic-sexy-nice. I've seen four episodes, and the time-hopping gimmicks fade quickly into easily resolvable conflicts.
Gwen Ihnat, AV Club
But “This story’s about the journey, not the destination,” adult Sophie tells her offspring, and it seems like a mission statement not just for this series, but a message to those disgruntled with the conclusion of the one that came before it. And, fair enough. But How I Met Your Father is still going to have to raise the stakes on that journey to make it one that viewers will want to take every week.
Dave Nemetz, TVLine
Duff knows the rhythms of TV comedy well and serves as a sturdy anchor for this ensemble, which also features Francia Raisa (grown-ish) as Sophie’s wild-child roommate Valentina and Tien Tran as Jesse’s lesbian sister Ellen, who moved to New York from Iowa “to ask out Kate McKinnon.” The cast is plenty likable, but the punchlines they’re given are lame, with lots of tired Tinder jokes, and the laugh track is loud and distracting.
Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
As to whether Father can live up to the legacy of what came before, it’s questionable. How I Met Your Mother was a pretty flawed show on a number of levels, but it was also quite often stunningly hilarious and poignant, featuring a few transcendent moments that can still inspire tears.
Ross Bonaime, Collider
In addition to trying to set up its own story and characters, HIMYF is struggling with the legacy of its past, while trying to fix the errors its predecessor made. That’s a lot to ask of any sitcom, and who knows if it will be able to pull this off in the long haul. But at least with these first four episodes, thanks to its appealing cast and plenty of promise, How I Met Your Father is off to a rocky, but auspicious start.
Siddhant Adlakha, IGN
More amusing than funny, the two-part How I Met Your Father premiere presents a bog-standard multi-camera sitcom that neither treads interesting stylistic ground the way its predecessor did, nor presents characters or relationships that are nearly as engaging. It does, however, feature a long-term narrative hook that could prove to be its saving grace.
Valerie Ettenhofer, Slash Film
After nine seasons of "How I Met Your Mother," I honestly wanted to be done with its world. But "How I Met Your Father" arrives on the scene, after an appropriate amount of time, with a fresh, ingratiating take and a team of storytellers who appear to have learned from the sins of their sitcom forefathers.
E.L. Meszaros, CBR
Overall, How I Met Your Father is an unexpectedly successful follow-up to How I Met Your Mother. The original show hasn't aged well, but the sequel series recognizes these faults and addresses them, crafting a more respectful comedy that shows that finding love in New York City can still be funny in 2022.
Though the How I Met Your Mother series finale soured some fans on the entire show, it remains one of the most well-known sitcoms of the past few decades. It brought a unique story to the world of television comedy, and it adopted a clever format. Based on the above early reviews, it sounds like How I Met Your Father isn’t anywhere near its predecessor. Though many complimented Duff and various members of the ensemble (including guest star Josh Peck), it’s clear the new friend group at the center of How I Met Your Father needs time to establish their own entertaining rapport.
Whether fans of HIMYM will be pulled into this sequel remains to be seen, but at least How I Met Your Father has offered some new twists to distinguish itself from what came before. It has been confirmed that How I Met Your Father takes place in the same universe as the previous show, though the reviews all indicate the connections between the two are pretty sparse at this point. With time to grow, Sophie’s story could become as charming as Ted Mosby’s. It just might take a while.
How I Met Your Father premieres Tuesday, January 18 on Hulu.
Source: Various (see above)