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The Best Show Nobody's Watching
How I Met Your Mother should have been the next Friends. The actors are dedicated, the characters honest; the writers walk the fine line between comedy and sentimentality flawlessly. So what went wrong? Miriam Datskovsky talked to the Emmy-nominated star, Neil Patrick Harris—who’s also this year’s Emmy host.
The very morning Letterman alums Carter Bays and Craig Thomas pitched their sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, to CBS, network president Les Moonves told his development team that they needed a show for young people. In other words, the next Friends. With Friends going off the air, CBS suddenly had a chance to cut into the much coveted 18 to 49 demographic. So CBS grabbed HIMYM, as its handful of diehard fans fondly call it.
Trouble is, the ratings blow: since its premiere in 2005, How I Met Your Mother has averaged nine million viewers between ages 18 to 49, placing it just shy of 60th in the rankings. The show is one of those cult-faves with a dedicated twentysomething following not unlike that of Miss Guided, which, when ABC cancelled after seven short episodes last year, rallied the blogosphere in a vain attempt to bring the freshman comedy back.
"When Dancing With The Stars is on for an hour-and-a-half Monday nights, you could show your boner on TV and no one would watch it."
That How I Met Your Mother airs on Monday nights is both a blessing and a curse. It doesn’t compete with comedy heavyweights The Office or even Entourage, but it does tend to get lost behind goofy reality TV and game shows. “When Dancing With The Stars is on for an hour-and-a-half Monday nights, you could show your boner on TV and no one would watch it,” Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney, a douchy, eccentric, but oddly humane and appealing man-slut, told The Daily Beast. “We’re glad we’re not in competition with another similar show. But honestly it can be frustrating when a show about suitcases [Deal or No Deal] beats you in the ratings week after week.”
That so few people actually watch HIMYM frustrates me too. True, I am a twenty-something single girl striving to become a successful journalist in New York and probably drinking more than I am advised to and, as such, firmly within the target audience. But the show is hilarious and heart-warming, genius in its writing, and innovative in its story-telling. The characters are honest: In addition to Barney, there is Ted (played by Josh Radnor), the goofy, romantic, slightly over-the-top protagonist searching for the love of his life; Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan), the would-be environmental protection lawyer stuck in a corporate job and his kindergarten-teacher, fashion-addict wife; and Robin (Cobie Smolders), the incredibly independent, forceful Canadian television reporter who inadvertently stole Ted, and then Barney’s, hearts.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Miriam Datskovsky is an associate editor at The Daily Beast. She has written for Conde Nast Portfolio, New York magazine, and nymag.com.
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Miriam Datskovsky is an associate editor at The Daily Beast. She has written for Conde Nast Portfolio, New York magazine, and nymag.com.
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Miriam Datskovsky is an associate editor at The Daily Beast. She has written for Conde Nast Portfolio, New York magazine, and nymag.com.
HIMYM is my favorite show, hands down, and I feel like I single-handly try to keep their ratings up.
I have watched this show and I have to say, I think the writing has gone down the toliet. Every week I try and give it another try, and it almost always has a negative and almost hostile reference to veg/vegans for no apparent reason, or some kind of animal helplessly involved like the poor monkey a few episides ago. It just comes off as being written by ignorant gradeschool boys.
Insulting people is not a good way to win them to you cause.
-a fortysomething former wisconsinite
I love this show! It makes friends look so generic and unrealistic...the thing I like best about this show are the details that they go through to explain things like Lily's expenisve outfits despite the fact that she's a teacher (she has loads of debt - it's great that the characters face situations like that). Friends would drive me crazy with Rachel (a waitress) and Monica (unemployed?) affording that huge apartment in NYC. I also love the less noticeable things in HIMYM, like when a character makes a joke, the others laugh, instead of eye-rolling or snarky remarks...its all part and parcel of a show that's very realistic in the way us twenty-somethings think, talk and react to the situations people our age are facing.
This piece needs severe copy-editing.
I watched a few early episodes, but I think I'm burnt out on the sitcom with the live (fake) studio audience. Some new and innovative shows are Dexter, True Blood, and if you're looking for amusing cultural commentary - South Park.
hee hee you love a tv show you actually tried to keep your job as a writer by writing about it. How much did CBS pay for this?
As i have learned so often, just becuase you love it doesn't mean it doesnt suck.
My wife and I both love this show. Love, love, love...
- fortysomething red stater
It is definitely one of my favorite shows. Being a 20 Something single guy in a big city, I find myself associating with a lot of the whacky situations the characters get into.
This season has started off weaker than past seasons but every time I write the show off, HIMYM "stops being lame and is awesome instead. True Story"
This show cant compare to Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia
The "new Friends" is a dream that will never die, but anything that's the "new" anything is bound to be the bland sitcom pablum that is this show. Seriously, it's as bad as TAAHM or ATJ.
You're a young "girl in the city" eh? I'm guessing you would have been a big fan of CITC or JSM. But I'm afraid S, the gold standard of 90's sitcoms would have been a little over your head.
Am forty-something, and pleased to know that due to the fact that I watch the show, I am officially not silly. Hooray!
so true. HIMYM is a really good show. i recomend it to anyone. it's a shame that so many other good shows come on at the same time, ie: Chuck, also an really goog show.
LOVE this piece, thanks for writing it -- i'm such a huge HIMYM fan
ONE BONE TO PICK WITCHA though is this: enough with the "HIMYM doesn't get great ratings" stories. It's actually not true. HIMYM beat "Dancing With The Stars" last week in both 18 to 49 and 18 to 34. Plus, HIMYM has had its best-ever start to a season in 18 to 49 this year. Please please PLEASE do your research properly before writing the "HIMYM's rating aren't so good" story -- in context, they're VERY GOOD. HIMYM's the third highest rated comedy on the air now, Behind only 2.5 Men and "The Office" (which it routinely beats in total viewers and sometimes ties or beats in 18 to 49).
Sorry, but i've just read this angle on HIMYM one too many times -- if you look at the facts, HIMYM's a real success story ratings-wise...it's also CBS' youngest skewing show -- why did you include none of these fact?
p.s. - but thanks for writing this piece -- it's certainly underappreciated! but the ratings have been doing better for quite a little bit now
Am sixty-something and never miss this show. Barney is frequently over the top, Marshall a little less, but Lily, Robin, and Ted make me laugh and make me cry on a regular basis
I'm a huge fan of mother and have been since midway through the first season. But I was under the impression that it's ratings while not stellar were certainly dependably solid.
"chomping up the bit."
Chomping AT the bit. As in a horse so agitated/eager that she is chewing at the piece of the bridle that goes through the mouth, know as the bit.
HIMYM is the only network show we Tivo, wouldn't miss it for anything! And we're 50-somethings, so there!
HIMYM is one of my every week shows. I love it - watching it right now!
Oh... really? My roommate watches this show. Right after another knee-slapper: Big Bang Theory. Both have some of the most forced delivery of ho-hum lines I have ever seen. I don't understand why the fans of this show (I have met a few and they're all RABID about it) laugh at any of the jokes. I've only watched it a few times because NPH is dreamy.
im a big fan of HIMYM. and i agree with the past posts that this seasons episodes have been steadily deteriorating. i hope that the story line start to improve.
Silly fortysomething (early) here who has seen all episodes of this often hilarious very much heartfelt and earnest show-- a rarity that has held fast in a sea of cynicism... Maybe now that the times are becoming more optimistic, the audience will come around... But why so upset Miriam Datskovsky? HIMYM is clearly going to be around for at least another 35 or so episodes and the people making it will certainly be rewarded financially, and as far as I can tell it's ratings keep growing. So, though I appreciate your passion, what is the problem? Whattup?
Thank you for writing this. It was but a year ago that I read a similar "HIMYM is Underappreciated" article that compared its lack of acclaim to 30Rock and Arrested Development.
"Arrested Development?" I thought, "I love that show!" And that is the story of how I fell in love with HIMYM and 30Rock. Seeing Neil Patrick Harris lounge in a thumbnail on The Daily Beast made my day.
Man, I wanted to be the person that mentions that HIMYM is the 3rd highest rated comedy on the air in the 18-49 demo. It comes very close to beating the Office some weeks as well. Yes, CBS didn't treat it that great its first two seasons, but they didn't really know what to do with a young skewering show. Luckily, young people caught on, and I hate to say we do owe Brittany Speaks a small thank you.
Also, Arrested Development was not a co-production like you stated. It was produced by 20th Century Fox and aired on Fox. It is not like Scrubs which is produced by ABC Studios and aired on NBC. You should prob do more fact checking.
Thank you.
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