How I Met Your Mother - Slaptastic!

[Izzy]

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Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor

Welcome back one and all to the the reigning champion of laugh track sitcoms!

How I Met Your Mother airs Mondays on CBS at 8:30pm starting September 22nd

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The Next Episode 1/12 8:30pm on CBS

Benefits -

Spoiler: show

Robin and Ted explore "friends with benefits" while living together. Marshall has trouble with a few reality TV stars.

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The Premise
How I Met Your Mother is the story of a story.

Ted Mosby is retelling his adventures from his late 20's and early 30's to his two kids. His goal is to tell his kids the story of how he met their mother, and to tell them everything on his path that led him up to that moment. The narrator is 'Future Ted' (voiced by Bob Saget) speaking from the year 2030. Since this is the re-telling of the story, we occasionally get very interesting story structure, and we have learned that Ted can be somewhat unreliable.

The Characters

Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) - Ted is an architect living in New York. At the end of last season, Ted proposed to his girlfriend Stella (played by Sarah Chalke, of Scrubs fame) after getting hit by a car, and re-evaluating his life.

Marshall and Lily (Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan) - Ted met Marshall and Lily in college, and the two have been a couple since then, with a brief breakup at the end of season 1. They subsequently got back together and got married. Lily is a kindergarten teacher, and Marshall became a lawyer in season 3, but after finding out how evil his bosses were, he quit and is currently unemployed. They bought an apartment last season which ended up being a huge mistake. They moved back in with Ted for the remainder of the season.

Robin (Cobie Smulders) - Robin is a news anchor for a local tv station, and she and Ted dated for all of season 2. They broke up, and season 3 was largely about the two of them normalizing their relationship after breaking up. Robin slept with Barney in season 3, and that led to tension between Barney and Ted. Robin was also a teen pop star in Canada under the name 'Robin Sparkles'. She had one hit, which we heard about in season 2, and one flop, which we heard about(aboot?) in season 3.

Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) - Barney is a guy you can only love as a TV character. He's a proud woman chaser and has no interest in dating anyone. He will literally say or do anything to get a woman into bed, which generally leads to hilarious results. He has a shady job which seems to involve crimes against humanity. After sleeping with Robin, Ted broke off contact with him, but at the end of the season, he ran to the hospital after finding out that Ted was hurt, and got hit by a bus. Once Ted found this out, he realized that Barney was a good friend, and they patched things up. Barney's final moment of the season was a long, meaningful look at Robin, so we might see more of that.

Things we can expect this season(or at least speculate about):

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Stella's Answer - Ted asked Stella to marry him at the end of last season, yes or no, it doesn't necessarily mean she's the mother.

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More hints about the mother? - Last season we got a ton of hints about the mother, like the yellow umbrella, and Ted saying the mother was at the St. Patrick's Day party that Ted was at (where he found a yellow umbrella). Most of these could be applied to Stella(especially the St. Patrick's day thing), but aren't definitive enough to prove anything. My personal feeling is that it would be pretty unsatisfying if Stella ended up being the mother, so I hope they move away from that.

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More Barney and Robin? - The season finale seemed to indicate that at least Barney felt something for Robin, we'll have to see if it comes to pass.

Robin and Ted will move in together at some point - We know from the previous season that Ted and Robin are living together on Ted's 31st birthday, which will come up this season. That also coincides with the full telling of the goat story, which I can't imagine they could possibly make satisfying enough for it to be worthwhile, but you never know.

Marshall and Lily? - Marshall and Lily kind of wrapped up all their loose ends last year, so look for them to move into their new apartment, and maybe have a kid? I don't know what the next step for them would be.

More Slaps? - God willing. Marshall has 2 slaps remaining which can be taken at any point between now and eternity. Last season he built up the slap from the opening episode. This season we don't have any indication. My one true dream is that the last shot of the series is Marshall slapping Barney in a nursing home, but we'll have to wait on that.

Show Related Links and Info

The DVDs of Season 3 are scheduled to arrive on October 7th Amazon has a pretty good price on them.

Barney's blog - Updated regularly throughout the season. Just a little mini-cherry on the regular cherry that is the awesome sundae of this show.

tedmosbyisajerk.com - In season 2("Ted Mosby, Architect), Barney used Ted's name for an evening when hooking up with a random girl. In season 3 ("The Bracket"), we discover that girl set up a website disparaging "Ted Mosby". Barney announced it to the world, and a legend was born. Listen to the song on the website. It's long, but totally worth it. The singer is the woman that plays Wendy The Waitress on the show.

Soundtrack

Robonoxious was nice enough to make an iPod ready version of the various songs the characters have written. Enjoy.

Robin Sparkles - Let's Go To The Mall

Robin Sparkles - Sandcastles In The Sand

Marshall Ericksen - You Just Got Slapped

I totally ripped this OP from mangler103 on Somethingawful. I love this fucking show. If you haven't seen it, go download it buy the DVD sets of the other seasons ASAP!

Is this show really for me?

I don't know, is it?

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[Fistandantilus]

This show truly is amazing, the only show better is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Barney is the greatest man ever.

[Furionstormrage]

This is my favorite show.

The writing and acting is great, anyone that hasn't seen this needs to go pick up the DVDs of the first 3 seasons and catch up.

Edit: Oh yeah and the girl who played Winnie Cooper is in two episodes.

[Exoduso]

I love CBS Mondays heh... Big bang theory, How I met your mother, and Two and a half men. <3

[Koyuki]

I love CBS Mondays heh... Big bang theory, How I met your mother, and Two and a half men. <3

^ This, It's really the only night I look forward to in the week.

[Headspace]

Robin is so bangin'

[Akiyama]

Love this series. Mondays are awesome, but hard on me. I watch Chuck/Heroes (bleh), along with Big Bang Theory and HIMYM.

[Exoduso]

Love this series. Mondays are awesome, but hard on me. I watch Chuck/Heroes (bleh), along with Big Bang Theory and HIMYM.

Same heh... I try to tivo as much as I can on mondays (shows you listed), and then get the rest (my own worst enemy, two and a half men) off demonoid overnight.

[SamanosukeShiva]

ive been following this since 1st season, so funny.

[thestalkmore]

I want to bang Allyson Hannigan. That's about it.

[Akiyama]

Mondays are going to suck now. I found out over the weekend that starting on their new episodes, House is moving to 8PM Eastern on Monday nights. So.. Chuck, House, Big Bang Theory/HIMYM... so not fair. D:

[Marius]

Marshall Ericksen - You Just Got Slapped

still prefer the episode version.

barneys "ooooo"s just make the song!

Edit: The last slap

[thatwasnifty]

I just finished season 3 on Netflix and am downloading season 4 now. It's definitely one of my favorite shows, but I'm getting tired of Barney. He's the same joke with little growth or variation, and the only reason he's entertaining at all is because Neil Patrick Harris is a fantastic actor who make him fun and enjoyable. I'd really like to see him become less two-dimensional.

[Kaslo]

I just finished season 3 on Netflix and am downloading season 4 now. It's definitely one of my favorite shows, but I'm getting tired of Barney. He's the same joke with little growth or variation, and the only reason he's entertaining at all is because Neil Patrick Harris is a fantastic actor who make him fun and enjoyable. I'd really like to see him become less two-dimensional.

Barney gets alot more interesting in the new season I think. His "tricks" to hook up with girls are alot more interesting and fun. Plus some character development too.

[thatwasnifty]

Good to hear. Season 3 did a some good to him, I think, and I'd like to see him flesh out some more.

[Exoduso]

They need to bring Britney back, I thought she was hilarious.

[Fistandantilus]

I completely disagree, I thought her acting was awful and was ecstatic when she was gone.

[Ashira]

Fave ep was the one when Barney and Robin first started to hook up, when James van der Beek guested - and Robin showed Barney her second music video... cracked up at some of the lines in that "song."

[Izzy]

Oh God I couldn't stand Brittney lol. My favorite episode has gotta be "Showdown".

[Ashira]

woooooooooooooooooooooo