Sometimes in life, you see someone,
and you just instantly know this is the person for you.
It can happen anywhere, even the waiting room of a tattoo
removal clinic.
Yes, that is pop superstar Britney Spears in one
of her two now famous guest appearances
on the hit CBS sitcom, How I Met Your Mother.
Despite how Ted is talking in the narration,
though, Britney is not actually his love interest.
She plays a minor supporting role,
and he's not even really talking about her there.
But while her character may barely even affect
the plot of the episodes she's in,
her appearance itself may have saved the whole series
and changed its course forever.
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Probably not quite as much.
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How I Met Your Mother was, for the most part, a pretty typical
sitcom about a group of friends hanging out and dating
in New York City.
But unlike Friends, Seinfeld, or any number
of sitcoms with similar premises, How I Met Your Mother
was framed as something of long-form mystery.
Although it was an ensemble affair,
the titular I was Ted Mosby.
The basic concept was that each episode was a flashback being
narrated by future Ted, who was telling his children the story
of how he met their mother.
Is this going to take a while?
Yes.
The identity of that mother, however,
was kept from the audience right up until the end of the show's
penultimate season.
So tracking clues and theorizing as to her identity
became part of the show's fun.
But while we remember this series as a huge success today,
that wasn't actually always the case.
So am I dead?
In fact, while its first two seasons
did well enough in the ratings to stay
on the air, How I Met Your Mother was not exactly what
you'd call a hit.
Its overall viewership did improve from season one
to season two, but like most shows,
it was really always just a few poorly rated episodes
from cancellation.
That's why it was so alarming when
the Writers' Guild of America went on strike in late 2007.
The strike had the effect of shortening the show's
third season by creating an unplanned hiatus,
starting in December of that year.
For a show on the bubble, a writers' strike,
which gave fans a chance to get out of the habit of tuning in,
was especially bad news.
After months of striking, How I Met Your Mother
returned to the airwaves in March of 2008,
but whether the show's audience would return as well
was an open question.
Luckily, the producers had an ace
up their collective sleeves, or in the words
of co-creator Carter Bays, "We got a call a few weeks
after the writers' strike ended, saying that Britney Spears
wanted to be on our show."
Now, in 2008, Britney Spears was still
one of the most famous pop stars in the world.
So for a producer who was worried that people might
no longer be interested in his show,
this was something like winning the lottery.
An appearance by Britney pretty much guaranteed people
would tune in.
It would have been a cause for celebration,
but that wasn't exactly the case.
According to Bays, she specifically
wanted to be in the episode "10 Sessions," which
sent a chill down our spines because that's
the one where we meet Stella.
Stella Zinman, for the uninitiated,
is a dermatologist first mentioned
in the episode, "The Platinum Rule."
Stella is going to zap that butterfly right
off the face of my lower back.
Stella?
Dr. Stella Zinman.
She's the best in the business.
Which was the last installment aired before the writers'
strike halted production.
In that episode, Ted tells his friends
he's planning to ask Stella to a movie,
and they all try to talk him out of it.
It was the storyline fans were left wondering about
for the whole hiatus, and it would pay off
in the first post-strike episode, "10 Sessions,"
a cleverly structured tale that helped
bridge the unplanned time jump.
Stella winds up becoming Ted's love interest,
but she was also something much more important than that.
She was the producers' backup plan.
As we mentioned before, How I Met Your Mother
was a little bit of a serialized mystery show,
like Lost or the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
Shows like that are especially difficult to produce because
of how many unforeseeable elements TV
production and success entails.
Actors can become unavailable.
Budgets can change.
Audiences might not respond to a character
or storyline as the writers hoped.
There's a lot that can go wrong.
And of course, for a multitude of reasons,
any season might wind up being a show's last.
So if the mystery is, who is the mother,
and how did Ted meet her, the producers always
need to have an answer ready, in case they unexpectedly
find themselves headed into a series finale, instead
of a season finale.
For example, even though they always
had a different ultimate conclusion in mind
for the show, if it had ended in season one,
the mother would have turned out to be fan-favorite character
Victoria, played by Ashley Williams.
With the show still on the brink heading into season three,
the producers decided to set up a new contingency mother,
and that was Stella.
But given the character's potential importance,
the producers quickly decided they
wanted a seasoned actress for what could
be a pivotal recurring role.
Despite some of the cast members having reservations
about such high profile stunt casting,
Bays and co-creator Craig Thomas briefly
considered the possibility of casting Spears as Stella.
While Spears had been a child actor on the all-new Mickey
Mouse Club, appeared in films like the 2002 movie Crossroads,
and made guest appearances on television shows
like Will and Grace, she wasn't exactly known
for her acting prowess.
Look, go along with this, and it'll work for you.
Look at me!
I clear $165 a week.
I moved out of my storage unit.
I'm on TV!
Years later, Bays would recall, "I
immediately imagined Britney playing Stella
and had a minor panic attack, because it's such a big role
and needed a proven, experienced actress."
Not wanting to lose their chance at a Britney appearance,
but also not looking to cast her as Stella,
the producers decided to split the difference.
They cast Stella with experienced actress Alicia
Silverstone and created a new role for Spears.
That role was Abby, Stella's secretary
who develops a weird stalkery crush on Ted
after he buys her a cup of coffee
as part of a scheme to show off how thoughtful he
is while attempting to court Stella.
You look like a young Tom Selleck, only a million times
handsomer.
And as Bays later explained, to her credit,
Britney liked the character of Abby
and wanted to play the part, so we said sure.
That should have been the happy resolution to it all,
but as they say, all solutions breed new problems.
In this case, the new problem was
that the casting of Spears as Abby
made Alicia Silverstone's reps afraid
that she would be overshadowed by the pop star.
So Silverstone dropped out.
Ugh!
As if!
Producers scrambled to fill the role
and were able to land Sarah Chalke, who
was the seasoned performer they were looking for
and would make an acceptable mother if need be.
But of course, in 2008, Chalke was still busy
playing Dr. Elliot Reid on Scrubs,
and her schedule wouldn't allow her
to recur as often as the How I Met Your Mother team
intended to feature Stella.
To accommodate the actress, the character
was reconceived, ultimately appearing
in just three episodes of season three.
It wouldn't give the show a chance
to establish her as fully as they might want
for a character who could have wound up
being the all-important mother, but that wouldn't really
turn out to be the problem because Spears' guest
appearance was wildly successful.
According to the Nielsen ratings,
the episode was watched by 10 million people, which
was almost 2.5 million more than what the show averaged
prior to the writers' strike.
Doctor, are you all right?
I heard a woman screaming in here.
[GASP] Oh.
And Britney's performance was even lauded by critics.
Bays himself said, "By golly, she put our show on the map.
It can't be overstated.
Britney Spears rescued us from ever being on the bubble again.
Thanks, Britney!"
It all went over so well that the cast and producers asked
Spears to reprise the role in season three, episode 19,
"Everything Must Go."
Once the show was renewed, Stella was no longer
needed as a backup mother.
She would eventually leave Ted at the altar in season four.
The mother, on the other hand, would eventually
turn out to be Tracy McConnell, played by Cristin Milioti.
It was the outcome the creators always
intended, as evidenced by the fact
that they shot part of the series finale way
back at the beginning of season two--
You made us sit down and listen to this story about how
you met Mom?
Yeah, Mom is hardly in the story.
--in order to capture the actors playing Ted's children
at the correct age in the footage they knew they'd need.
But despite the preparations they
took, if you do the math, had Britney not
made her appearance, the show never
would have received the rating boost she brought and very
likely could have ended with Ted marrying Alicia Silverstone's
Stella at the end of season three.
Or if the producers had given their big guest star
the big role, it could have ended with Ted marrying Britney
Spears.
It's an amusing reminder that when
it comes to long-form mystery storytelling on TV,
both audiences and creators need to be a little flexible.
Oh, and also, hire Britney Spears.
It's Britney, bitch.
So what do you think?
Were you a fan of How I Met Your Mother
before Britney showed up?
And what did you think of her appearance?
Let us know down in the comments below.
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