Hulu's How I Met Your Father stars Francia Raisa, Tom Ainsley, and Suraj Sharma have explained the show's biggest differences from its predecessor How I Met Your Mother. The highly anticipated spinoff premiered on January 18, with the first two episodes now available to watch. Taking inspiration from the original series and Ted Mosby's (Josh Radnor) quest for romance, How I Met Your Father centers on Sophie (Hilary Duff), a single woman in her 30s searching for love along with her friends in New York City.
Despite being unlucky in love, Duff's Sophie still retains her optimism in How I Met Your Father. Joining her is her roommate and best friend Valentina (Raisa), and Valentina's British love interest, Charlie (Ainsley). In How I Met Your Father episode 1, the three meet Jesse (Christopher Lowell), an aspiring musician/Uber driver who's been recently dumped, his best friend Sid (Suraj Sharma) who owns a bar, and Ellen (Tien Tran), Jesse's adoptive sister who moves to New York after divorcing her wife. While the storylines are completely new, the spinoff show's settings are familiar. Sid's bar, Pemberton's, is reminiscent of McClaren's Pub from HIMYM, and Jesse owns the same apartment where Marshall and Lily once lived.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, stars Raisa, Ainsley, and Sharma, sat down to discuss How I Met Your Father. When asked about the new show's differences from the original, Ainsley highlighted how HIMYF takes into account how drastically things have changed in the past 17 years, especially dating culture. The actor explained how the spinoff show needed to show a world that had "moved on." Read his full comments below:
Exclusive: "The world has changed so dramatically since 2005. We're telling a story about love. We're telling a story about dating. And the world of dating has moved on, and we needed a show that reflected that. It needed to reflect the difficulties of dating online, the challenges, and the benefits of it as well, I suppose. But yeah, I think the world moved on. And so, we have to reflect that."
When How I Met Your Mother premiered on CBS in 2005, the world was indeed a very different place. Smartphones and social media did not yet exist, and society was much less inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community. While HIMYM was an extremely popular show and still beloved by fans, there are elements of HIMYM that are offensive to many, including much of Barney's behavior towards women, as well as instances of transphobia, lack of LGBTQ+ character representation and actors of color in the cast, and racism. The new How I Met Your Father has a more diverse cast, and presents a more accurate look at what dating is like in 2022 (complete with the perils of Tinder) while retaining the spirit of the original show that fans loved.
With only two episodes under its belt so far, it will be exciting to see what How I Met Your Father has in store for the rest of the season. The creators have teased cameos from the original HIMYM cast, and the show has set up lots of interesting romantic storylines, including a Ted and Robin-esque "will they, won't they" between Sophie and Jesse. The show also has a great opportunity to focus the stories of LGBTQ+ characters like Ellen, a gay woman, as she finds love and a queer community in New York. How I Met Your Father certainly has lots of potential, and can be inspired by and build on the best parts of its original source material, while also creating a new hit show that better fits the world of 2022.