Unfortunately, I loved the How I Met Your Father premiere

polygon.com:

Like many others, I was burned by the How I Met Your Mother finale. Why spend nine seasons building up to the introduction of a character only to unceremoniously kill her off? Why break up my favorite couple on the show just so insufferable Ted Mosby could shoot his shot decades later? As much as the sitcom captivated me with its tight-knit friend group dynamic, full of inside jokes that the characters shared with the audience, the finale took everything I liked about the show and managed to completely blow it up in the last 10 minutes.

So, when How I Met Your Father — not to be confused with the shelved How I Met Your Dad — was announced, I rejected it on principle. They won’t get me this time, I thought. I’m stronger. I’ve learned. I’ve grown past the need for sitcoms about friend groups in New York City in impossibly cool apartments.

’Twas with a steeled heart that I watched the How I Met Your Father premiere, through squinted eyes, as I mentally prepared myself to be disappointed. And yet, the more I watched, the more I let my icy heart melt and by the end, I realized that perhaps for the first time I am specifically the target audience of something. I grew up with Lizzie McGuire, I watched the How I Met Your Mother finale in my college dorm common area, I am a late 20-something living in New York City, who feels like the pandemic has robbed me of spontaneous sitcom adventures alongside a group of friends with magically clear schedules (as if I went out a lot before), and my engagement photos were taken with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background (more on that later).

If I can’t race across the city with a group of beautiful people, at least I can watch Hilary Duff do so! I’ve shed my cynicism and reluctantly