CBS renews 'How I Met Your Mother' -- with full cast -- for season 9

I am beyond disappointed at this news.

At one point, I would have been thrilled. At one point, I was a die-hard How I Met Your Mother Fan. I didn't just love the show - I was IN love with the show. It was a creative, hilarious, off-color, heartfelt, and realistic coming-of-age and finding-your-way story that any New Yorker in particular and any twentysomething in general could relate to, all at the same time. As I was just saying to my fiance, I could watch the repeats every day. And in fact, sometimes I do. I even turned him onto the early seasons of the show. He's a huge Barney Stinson fan. Who can blame him? Barney rocked.

But the past few seasons have been shaky at best, sucky at worst. I don't want to accuse the showrunners and writers of getting lazy, but its got to be difficult to put together 22 episodes every year for eight years. Sometimes, the story is just finished. The British TV model is almost better - 6-12 episodes every year (or sometimes every other year) for four years, tops, with the exception of Dr. Who, and then the story is done.

Is it network greed? HIMYM is still a successful show for CBS. CBS still wants to make money. Hence, bring the show back. If I was any of the showrunners or actors, I would have a hard time turning down a lot of money to show up and phone it in. I had hopes when I heard Jason Segel didn't want to return for a season 9. Out of all of the actors, his career is the one on the fast track. He's putting together a pretty successful movie career. He doesn't need this show. If it was the old days, I would've called him a hero, how even though he's a Hollywood big shot he was remembering the show and people who (mostly) put him on the map. But I was really hoping he would hold out and force the show to end this season.

Season 8 was supposed to be the last. I started watching again this season because it was supposed to be the last, and I wanted to see how this once-great show that I once loved, ended. HIMYM was supposed to be like Lost - it was supposed to have been given a set number of seasons and episodes to go so that the creators could think of and set up, convincingly, their end game. I thought it was a great plan. Shows very rarely get that certainty, that end point that they can plan for. HIMYM is a show that kinda sorta required a plan and an end game. And now, we have a whole new season next year to contend with.

Obviously, I feel a lot more passionately about this than I thought - I didn't expect this blog entry to be so long. It makes me mad that a show that I used to love is now a show that I wish would just go off the air already. But maybe a change in their game plan requires a change in my game plan - since this is no longer the final season, maybe I'll watch 1st-5th season repeats on Monday nights instead, when the writing was crisp, sharp, and witty, when the characters were three-dimensional, well-rounded people who grew and learned and changed, when this show still made me laugh, then made me cry, then made me laugh again. I can tune in next year to see how the series FINALLY (HOPEFULLY) ends!

You can read the Zap2it.com article here.