After the long-running hit How I Met Your Mother left the lineup, CBS planned a spinoff,
and even filmed a pilot, but pulled the plug before the show reached the airwaves.
Here's a look at the reasons we still haven't seen How I Met Your Dad.
Though series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, along with writer Emily Spivey, shot
a pilot for How I Met Your Dad, CBS kicked it back for reshoots.
This didn’t sit well with the trio, who said they wouldn't reshoot the pilot unless
CBS gave a commitment to take it to series.
CBS pushed back, refusing to give the show a series order without seeing the reshoots
first.
Much to the dismay of How I Met Your Mother superfans, CBS officially passed on the spinoff
in May 2014, citing “certain creative elements” as the reason why.
When the pilot script for How I Met Your Dad was released by the website TV Writing in
April 2016, the mystery of why the show was never picked up became a bit more clear.
For one, the dialogue was awkward and stilted, featuring lines like: "Break-ups are like
kidnappings.
The first 48 hours are crucial.
You gotta blow up the bridge behind you!
And the only way to do it is by doing it … with a dude."
And "You're a slob, Sally!
Dishes everywhere, dirty laundry.
And you always leave cabinet doors open!
For a while, I thought we had a poltergeist."
Of course, dialogue is almost always worse when you're reading it off the cold pages
of a script, but these lines felt deeply unnatural, and fans of How I Met Your Mother had come
to expect a certain level of quality.
"That’s what passes for comedy these days?
Whoa, I’m falling back in my chair!
Whoa!
Hee hee hee hee hee!
Whoa!
I'm really falling back in my chair…"
The awkward, problematic script might have been what led to the exit of Broadway actress
Krysta Rodriguez, who was originally set to play the best friend to Greta Gerwig's lead
character.
However, Rodriguez reportedly left the show just days before production was set to begin.
Though her departure was never fully explained, the talented actress, who originated the role
of Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family musical, could have been a big hit for the series.
She was replaced by Tiya Sircar, best known for her roles in The Good Place and Alex,
Inc.
When Greta Gerwig was cast in How I Met Your Dad’s leading role, many people wondered
how the actress’ signature quirky humor would fit into the sitcom medium, and fans
were unsure if the indie film star had enough recognition to carry such an anticipated series.
While CBS was reportedly happy with Gerwig’s portrayal of the lead, they weren't as pleased
with two of the other members of the five-person cast.
While declining to name names, anonymous sources claimed "two of the main characters" were
a sore spot for network executives, who felt they simply "didn't pop" alongside Gerwig.
And though CBS liked Gerwig, the network may not have been totally satisfied with the lead
character as a whole.
Sally, who was described as a "female Peter Pan who has never grown up and has no idea
of where she's going with her life," might have been too much of a mess for audiences
to fall in love with, which reportedly was a point of concern for CBS.
"Oh, honey."
Networks take a number of things into consideration when deciding whether or not to order a series.
And while quality is a big part of it, it’s not the only thing that matters.
How I Met Your Dad, like How I Met Your Mother, was a 20th Century Fox property, meaning that
Fox would make money from an eventual, potentially lucrative, syndication deal if the series
took off, not CBS.
While this wouldn’t be the only thing stopping the network from ordering the pilot, it would
definitely put it at a disadvantage against other comedy pilots that the network was developing
in-house, like Matthew Perry’s doomed remake of The Odd Couple.
How I Met Your Mother was successful partly because it was different from every other
sitcom on TV.
The series had an original and refreshing format, which made the pilot stand out instantly.
However, How I Met Your Dad didn’t benefit from this originality.
The original format was already stale after nine seasons, and the How I Met Your Dad pilot
did nothing to revamp it.
Just as How I Met Your Mother started with Ted talking to his teenage kids about the
first time he met their Aunt Robin, the How I Met Your Dad pilot saw Sally recounting
to her kids the first time she met Frank, who is assumed to be the titular Dad, before
finally ending with the big reveal that he's actually Uncle Frank.
While that worked for the original series, the revamp needed to do something bigger and
bolder in order to set itself apart.
"I kept this story short and to the point and you guys still missed it."
Fans lamenting the loss of another chapter in the How I Met Your Mother saga got an unexpected
surprise in December of 2016, when it was reported that the spinoff, now officially
titled How I Met Your Father, was back on.
Even more encouraging was that the project had fallen into the hands of Isaac Aptaker
and Elizabeth Berger, two members of the writing team behind the NBC dramedy This Is Us.
However, as This Is Us became a bona fide hit, both Aptaker and Berger found themselves
unavailable to proceed with How I Met Your Father.
Fox chairman Dana Walden told Deadline in August 2017 that the studio would be trying
to develop the spinoff with different writers, adding that they would be “starting from
scratch” and not using any elements of the previous How I Met Your Dad.
Whatever comes of the spinoff, one thing’s for sure, it has to be legend...Wait for it
"...DARY!
LEGENDARY!"