I, like many fans, was pretty disappointed with season 8 of How I Met Your Mother. It seemed as if the contract negotiations and uncertainty surrounding the end of the show severely affected the quality of what turned out to be the penultimate season. The show was less funny, less heartwarming, and less enjoyable than ever before. That frequently happens with sitcoms that overstay their welcome, so the main question going into the start of season 9 is whether season 8 was a fluke, or has the show really lost its magic and stayed on the air for too long?
We know that season 9 is going to be different than the previous seasons. Instead of taking place over the course of a year like we’re used to, it’s supposedly all going to happen on the weekend of Barney and Robin’s wedding. Weekends aren’t all that long, so we’re likely going to see overlapping stories and a fair amount of misdirection. We also have already seen the mother, and she’s set to be a prevalent part of the season, so obviously that’s very different than what we’re used to.
I’d like to be optimistic going into this season, but I’m finding that very hard to do after sitting through season 8. If season 9 is the quality we’re used to, then who cares how horrible 8 was, but if it’s another let-down of a season, well, that will certainly hurt the show as a whole, especially since we’ve been building to this for the last 8+ years.
There are a few really bad things I could see the writers and creators doing with the show this season. Because of that, I’ve decided to outline 5 ways that How I Met Your Mother can ruin season 9, and in the worst case, have season 9 ruin How I Met Your Mother. Obviously there are endless possibilities of ridiculously stupid things that could be done, but the five that follow in this article are things that I could realistically see happening. So read on, and cross your fingers that none of these things are remotely near this final season of HIMYM.