How I Met Your Mother is back for a second season on CBS this year. I had previously stated that this was the pilot because I'd never even heard of this show. Initially I rendered my opinion on this show after having watched only about five minutes or so of it, having turned it off because, well... it just seemed lame. I was taken to task for rendering an opinion on the show without having watched the entire thing by a couple of commenters, so I have forced myself to watch the rest of it.

From what I can gather, the idea of the show is a dad telling his 20 year old (or so) son and daughter 24 years from now about how he met their mother, and presumably the exploits of him, their mom and his friends.

Why did I initially last only five minutes? For starters, the cheesy laugh track. I guess it's been a while since I've watched a sitcom... do they still use laugh tracks on all of them? Anyway, what really makes them stand out is when they crank up the laughs on lines that just aren't that funny. You only see his kids sitting on the couch, sitting there listening to the story when they'd rather be somewhere else.

But that's only the start... They cut to showing him (the dad) along with his friends and the future mom and it's obvious that the producers are trying to make this the next Friends, which as far as I can tell, it ain't. The main reason I turned it off was that here he was narrating the story of how he met their mom to his kids and there is plenty of talk about them having "hooked up" and the fact that when you find someone you care about that "you spend a lot of time in bed".

This is his idea of telling his kids (for posterity) how he met their mother?

Anyway, during the rest of the 30 minute episode (which felt more like an hour), one of the characters is wallowing in self pity over his girlfriend of nine years having dumped him (hint: maybe he should have married her after, oh, three years?). We are dragged through his 67 day "road to recovery" as his friends try a variety of things to snap him out of his funk.

Oh, by the end of the episode, the dad had also narrated to his grown kids about how part of the attempted recuperative process involved going to strip clubs, which I thought was a lovely touch.

Sorry, but I don't find that funny no matter how you slice it.

About the best thing this show has going for it is Neil Patrick Harris (of Doogie Howser fame) as an ascerbic, jerk of a character, but he's fun to watch. Unfortunately he's not onscreen all the time, and I found the rest of it pretty weak, with an attempt at "heart" at the end.

My opinion stands, based on both the humor (or lack of it) and the premise of a dad narrating the tawdry details of his single life to his kids.

Thumbs down from me.