Call it Friends for the next generation, but How I Met Your Motherholds its own as one of the few well-written sitcoms on these days. Each episode is told in flashback by main character Ted Mosby to his children, each story supposedly leading up to, yes, how he meets his wife. But we never get there. Each episode is a story about nothing and everything, the twenty-something years of finding love and a good job. The story technique of using a storyteller is a brilliant one for this type of character-driven sitcom, because it allows the writers to manipulate time and set up the audience for hilarious and cathartic revelations delivered quickly as the show comes to an end.
One flaw of the show (common to many sitcoms) is that the supporting cast, lead by newly-popular comic personalities Jason Segel and Neil Patrick Harris, is much more entertaining than Ted. This, however, means that the comedy comes mostly from the characters – not from a series of one-liners and gags.
