How I Met Your Mother: Who's Your Mommy?

The premise of How I Met Your Mother is simple. Each week a man sits down with his teenage son and daughter in the year 2030 and proceeds to tell them the story of how he met their mother. However, the show is currently in its eighth season, and we still have no idea who the mother is. Which is a great lesson about TV - no matter what your premise, even if stated in the title, you don't have to actually stick to it.

The show is a half-hour sitcom with a laugh track, an antiquated notion in these sophisticated days of television comedy. However, it contains one of the best casts around, which accounts for its continuing success over the past eight years. Jason Segel (of Freaks & Geeks fame and now a leading man in comedies like The Muppets and The Five Year Engagement) plays Marshall Eriksen, who is married to Lily (played by the delightful Alyson Hannigan from Buffy and American Pie). The two are the stable couple at the center of this sitcom world and just had their first kid this season. Their best friend from college, Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) is the guy telling the tale of how he met his wife, aka "the mother." 

The very first episode introduced Robin Scherbatsky (the lovely Cobie Smulders, most recently seen in The Avengers), a girl that Ted fell in love with at first sight. As a result, the audience assumed that she was the mother, until the episode ended with the voiceover explaining to the kids, "that's how I met your Aunt Robin." Despite knowing for sure that Robin wasn't the mother, the show proceeded to detail the rest of Ted and Robin's romance, which has gone through more ups and downs than Ross and Rachel. There's something crazy about the idea that the showrunners could indulge in several seasons of a TV romance when the audience already knows the outcome, but somehow it works.

The final member of the cast is Barney Stinson, played by the ever-hilarious Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible himself!). Barney is a loathsome womanizer, but Harris is so delightful and charming in the role that you never feel repulsed by Barney's constant parade of dumb blondes (and every other hair color imaginable). Later seasons have been particularly enjoyable because Barney is starting to grow up--albeit at a glacial pace--and last season's finale revealed who he ends up marrying. Now we get to watch that romance unfold, and the inevitability of it still doesn't spoil the story.

It seems clear that we will only find out who the mother is when the show enters its final season or faces cancellation. Till then, we'll have a parade of possibilities and frustrating red herrings. But who cares? Watching Marshall, Lily, Robin, Barney, and Ted indulge in crazy conversations and inane adventures throughout New York is more important than finding out who the mother is. How I Met Your Mother is not a revolutionary comedy but it certainly is a comforting one that delivers dependable laughs every Monday night. Ted's kids have been listening to this story for eight years - they can keep on listening for a few more.