Been practically “off the grid” the past week - discovered and promptly became a fanboy of How I Met Your Mother, a CBS sitcom now in it’s third season. A little surprising for me since after the end of Friends and Will and Grace I thought the whole “group of young adults in the city” sitcom thing had been milked dry.

The premise seems generic at first. It’s told from the perspective of Ted Mosby in 2030, telling his children the story of how he met their mother. I was actually quite disappointed with the pilot - the characters seemed generic, and I was like “Bah I know how this’ll go”. For all the brilliance of Friends, you always knew Ross would end up with Rachel. But HIMYM pulled a doozie when it ended its pilot with future Ted stating to his children “And that’s the story of how I met your Aunt Robin.” Jeng jeng jeng!

At first I only continued watching because I wondered how the heck a show would last when it told you up front that no, its flagship couple would in fact *not* end up together, but gradually I began to appreciate what set it apart.

Flashbacks and creative narration have always made for good viewing - Friends had the hilarious bits of the gang in college, Will and Grace had that amazing episode where Will first came out to Grace. And House isn’t a sitcom, but the Emmy-winning episode Three Stories is a shining example of the method. HIMYM exploits these techniques to the fullest, using its narrative setting to jump back and forth in the “story” for that episode (because of this, HIMYM isn’t performed live and every episode takes about three times as long to produce).

It also rewards viewer loyalty by doing this even between episodes! In the third-to-last episode of Season 2, the story centers around Ted, but we see flashes of Marshall wearing a hat at his wedding table, and of Robin’s apartment with a particular ornament missing. The next two episodes tell us the stories behind them and weave deftly into the season finale. A far cry from the more episodic (and rerun-friendly ) format of other shows.

And of course there’s Barney, who steals every scene he’s in. I’m not sure whether it’s because Neil Patrick Harris ( who recently sort-of criticized Britney Spears guest appearance on the show ) is just a damn good actor, or if he gets all the best catchphrases (probably both). I’d watch the show for him alone!

The rest of the cast aren’t bad, but they pretty much stick to their roles, letting the script and direction shine instead. I thought Robin was too good-looking to be believable at first, but after a certain episode in Season 2 (”Let’s go the Mall!”) she was redeemed.

HIMYM uses Internet buzz well. Barney constantly refers to “his blog” in the show, which is an actual one hosted at CBS and updated regularly, but sadly it seems that its archives got lost in a site revamp. Josh Radnor, who plays Ted, has a blog at TV Guide.com, it’s not updated regularly but has some pretty good stories.

And yes, I’ll say it: HIMYM is as awesome as Will and Grace, and even - wait for it - Friends. Yes it’s that awesome! Too bad it doesn’t seem to be showing on Astro any more.

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