How I Met Your Father is a spinoff of the beloved show How I Met Your Mother and follows the story of protagonist Sophie, played by Hilary Duff, and her journey to find love. The show uses the same framing device as the original to depict Sophie's misadventures in love and frequently pays tribute to its predecessor with subtle nods and references. The show also features cameos from the original cast, including Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky in the season 1 finale and Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson in the season 2 premiere. These appearances not only add a touch of nostalgia for fans of the original show but also adds depth to the spinoff's story. The creators, Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, have announced plans to include more members of the original cast in the show to keep the nostalgia alive.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger stated that they hope to eventually feature all six main cast members of the original How I Met Your Mother in their spin-off show. They revealed that Harris' recent cameo in the season 2 premiere had shown the benefits of including the rest of the central cast in Sophie's story. The creators have plans and ideas for all the original characters, and it's just a matter of scheduling and availability.
"We truly have discussed plot lines for all of the original characters. Now it's just a question of parsing them out and hoping that people are available and want to do it when it's the right time to ask. But yes, we think it's so much fun, and it makes our world bigger, and it satisfies fans on a really deep level, so we love to do it, and we have the ideas," Berger said.
Aptaker then added, "And our cast gets so excited too. Hilary was so excited to work with Neil. They messaged a little bit, and he interviewed her back when we launched the show last year. They have so much in common — they both were these giant TV stars when they were still in middle school, and now they've both fronted the How I Met series. They have these shared experiences, and them getting to share the screen was really special."
Barney Returns In How I Met Your Father
How I Met Your Father mainly follows new characters, but it has featured characters from the parent show How I Met Your Mother. Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger recently talked about the return of Barney in an interview with TVLine, revealing that it was easy to make it happen as NPH was very open to the idea. They also mentioned that they made sure to stay true to the character while also making sure that his return would make sense in the spinoff.
"We wanted to bring him back, and we wanted him to be true to his character and to the fans that loved Barney so much. But we also wanted him to exist on our show, in our time, in a way that made sense, so all of that Zoom was spent talking about how we could blend all those things and service him and the show in the best way possible. We are very excited for people to see the way that turned out."
The creators have shown a keen interest in keeping the nostalgia of the original show alive in the spinoff, and Barney's return is a testament to that. It will be interesting to see how the story unfolds with the return of a fan-favorite character.