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List Price: $39.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 326
Released: November 21, 2006 |
| Our Price: $14.00 |
| Used Price: $9.90 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A love story in reverse: How I Met Your Mother is a fresh new comedy about Ted (Josh Radnor) and how he fell in love. When Ted's best friends Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lilly (Alyson Hannigan) decide to tie the knot it sparks the search for his own Miss Right. Helping him in his quest is his bar-hopping "wing-man" Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), a confirmed bachelor with plenty of wild schemes for picking up women. Ted's sites are set on the charming and independent Robin (Cobie Smulders), but destiny may have something different in mind. Told through a series of flashbacks, Ted recalls his single days, the highs and lows of dating and the search for true love.
Description of How I Met Your Mother: Season One:
If the end of Friends left a hole in your life, take a look at How I Met Your Mother. Quirky young urban folk grappling with life and love--check. Charming, good-looking actors who aren't afraid of looking like idiots for the sake of a good joke--check. Crisp, solid writing that sticks comfortably within the sitcom format, but is fresh enough to nudge the show into surprising and inventive moments--check. In fact, the creators of How I Met Your Mother should be embarrassed by how close they hew to the Friends formula--except that they do it so well. Let's face it, Friends didn't invent this territory (tales of twentysomething life), they just refined it. How I Met Your Mother quickly cultivates its own flavor: A little more openly romantic than most sitcoms, willing to let a scene take a quiet or off-kilter turn, trusting that not every viewer has to get every joke.
The hub of the likable cast is Josh Radnor, who keeps Ted (a single guy ready to settle down) from being annoying, despite his neuroses and perfectionism. Cobie Smulders gives Robin (the girl Ted thinks might be the one, but who doesn't want to settle down) enough goofy, tomboyish charm that she feels like a person and not an idealized love interest. Jason Segel (Freaks and Geeks) and Alyson Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Pie), plays Ted's soon-to-be-married best friends Marshall and Lily with enough lingering doubt in their engaged happiness to keep them from becoming too comfortable. And rounding out the cast is Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, M.D.), shedding his good-guy image as Barney, a crass, lecherous cad who, nonetheless, comes through for his friends. Episode plots are pretty straightforward (Ted signs up with matchmaking agency; Marshall takes a well-paying job he doesn't like; when Ted gets a girlfriend, Robin realizes she has feelings for him after all; and Lily has second thoughts about getting married), but the show maintains a nice balance of single-episodes stories and a season-long arc--and as you grown attached to the characters, even fairly routine stories are made to feel fresh. This is good comfort television: Smart but not snotty, earnest but not cloying, oddball without being forced or wacky. Check it out. --Bret Fetzer
How I Met Your Mother: Season One Reviews:
A surprisingly enjoyable and delightful series 
2009-12-26 - Every winter during the holiday hiatus when there are no new episodes being broadcast of any of my shows, I always try to knock off two or three shows that I've not seen but have had some curiosity about. Now, I detest sitcoms. Hate, hate, hate! I loathe laugh tracks. I consider them toxic and vile and completely destructive. And in most cases I hate how stilted the sets are and how unimaginative the camera work is (no sitcom in the history of TV has had interesting camerawork, and I say that even though Karl Freund, one of the great geniuses in the history of cinematography, directed many episodes of I LOVE LUCY). I watch a lot of TV, but I avoid sitcoms like I avoid infectious diseases. I love comedy, mind you. I love 30 ROCK, PARTY DOWN, THE OFFICE, and MODERN FAMILY, all of them comedies and none of them sitcoms, and all among my favorite shows.
So why did I try HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER? Mainly it was because I'd seen a number of TV critics who stated that it was a good show despite being a sitcom. Part of it was Alyson Hannigan. BUFFY is my all time favorite show and if you love BUFFY you love Willow. Interestingly, I don't know a single person who watches the show (at least to my knowledge) and I pretty much decided to give it a shot despite the whole sitcom thing. Surprisingly, I liked it. A lot. Not as much as 30 ROCK and PARTY DOWN and THE OFFICE and definitely not MODERN FAMILY (which might be the best new comedy since ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT), but it was still quite good, with an enormously likable small group of characters. The laugh track is indeed irritating and, of course, completely unnecessary. And what is more, it isn't a pure sitcom. It does a surprising amount out-of-the-studio shooting (though on what anyone who is a serious fan of TV will recognize as the Warner Brothers urban lot, which has been used in hundreds of movies and TV series). The street shots are on the precise same sets that were used for Metropolis in THE ADVENTURES OF LOIS AND CLARK and New Haven in THE GILMORE GIRLS and the area around the Pie Hole in PUSHING DAISIES. Plus there are a surprising number of green screen shots. So the show avoids the static feel that most three camera sitcoms have. It isn't visually interesting, though it is less bland than, say, TWO AND A HALF MEN. There are all kinds of ways that the show breaks established rules in minor ways.
Despite the somewhat static visual dimension of the show and the nauseating laugh track, this is a pretty decent show and now that I'm caught up all the way through the first half of Season Five, I fully plan on continuing to watch in the future. The two things that make the show work for me are the cast and the writing, which despite the well traveled genre. I like that the cast consists of two unknowns (Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders)at least at the start) to go with three well known actors (Hannigan, Neil Patrick Harris, and Jason Segal). I love all five characters and they are all sensational individually but also tremendous as an ensemble. And the writers manage to keep their stories interesting and ever new by a string of fascinating developments. I am especially impressed by Neil Patrick Harris, who probably had his career set back by a decade by his Doogie Howser days. (Which reminds me that another reason I took up the show was because of how much I enjoyed Harris in the title role of DR. HORRIBLE.)
I'm still not a big fan of sitcoms and I doubt if I'll be adding many to my viewing roster in the future, but this is the big exception. I think the show would have been greatly improved if they had tweaked it only slightly. I know they have tied the show to stage sets to keep the budget down. And the format means that the lack of visual experimentation means short set ups and keeps costs down. The point is, I detest the genre, but I still like HIMYM. Which I think speaks volumes for the quality of the show.
How I Met Your Mother 
2009-12-26 - I thought that buying the seasons for "How I Met Your Mother" would be expensive and trying to find a good deal time consuming. I went to amazon.com though and found the first season for so cheap. I love this show and knowing that I could get it for that cheap, on my college budget made me really happy. I plan on getting the rest of the seasons and hope to make sure that I shop at Amazon for my movies, tv show seasons and books from now on. Thanks Amazon.com!
Great TV show
2009-12-09 - Item was received very well packed and protected from any scratches or bumps. Great deal, great TV show to watch over and over.
Funniest Show on TV
2009-12-02 - This has got to be one of the funniest shows on television. Neil Patrick Harris is a riot. The entire cast is also funny, but gotta love NPH! Highly recommend this box set.
Best show for 30 year olds
2009-11-23 - I agree with most of what has been said by the other reviewers. This show is one of the best on TV right now and Neil Patrick Harris deserves to win an Emmy for his role as Barney. I think this show is the best for people that are around 30 years old because so much of the show is relevant to us. I definitely recommend this show to anyone in that age group that likes to laugh! Season one is great at introducing all the characters and getting you to like them and get into the story right away.
