Alyson Hannigan

How I Met Your Mother (Tonight at 8 on Channel 2) Lily (Alyson Hannigan) decides to seek a Christmastime revenge after she hears Ted (Josh Radnor) use a very unflattering word to describe her in an old answering machine message.

A week ago, CBS announced that an episode of "Criminal Minds" would get the primo post-Super Bowl time period. And why not? "Criminal Minds," in spite of reviews that compare it (sometimes unfavorably) to a snuff film, has been the season’s biggest growth story, edging perilously close to timeslot rival "Lost" in the 18-49 demographic and occasionally passing it in total viewers. It’s become such a force that ABC will actually move "Lost" back an hour to 10 o’clock Wednesdays when it returns in February.

Here’s why not: Because "How I Met Your Mother" — the best traditional sitcom left on TV, and the first true heir to "Friends" — is also on the CBS schedule, just waiting for this kind of showcase.

What’s the upside on "Criminal Minds," especially when "American Idol" will be moving into the time period just as "Lost" is moving out? True, nobody expected it to do as well as it already has this year. And there’s a chance it could follow the pattern of last year’s post-pigskin show, "Grey’s Anatomy," which was already rising up the charts before the game and is now the most popular show on television.

But at the end of the day, as people in the TV business like to say, how much higher can "Criminal Minds" go on a network that’s in the double figures on crime dramas? If you want to watch a procedural police show, chances are you’re more than familiar with CBS’ line-up, even if you haven’t checked them all out. Maybe the Super Bowl exposure nudges this show ahead a little, but a "Grey’s"-like explosion? Nah.

"How I Met Your Mother," on the other hand, is the exact kind of show that can take advantage of the borrowed Super Bowl audience. The story of five New York friends in their late 20s looking for love and having silly adventures, it’s not remotely what people expect to find on CBS. If it were airing on NBC Thursdays at 8:30 four or five years ago, it would be a sensation; on CBS in 2006, it’s a solidly-performing afterthought.

Some unscientific anecdotal evidence: In the last year and a half of giving personal viewing recommendations to friends and strangers, I have yet to meet a single person who had heard of "HIMYM" without already having seen it — and everyone I’ve talked into giving it a try has thanked me for it. The phrase "I can’t believe I didn’t know about this sooner" has come up more than a few times.

The set-up: Nice guy architect Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) shares a Brooklyn apartment with his best friend, law student Marshall (Jason Segel). Marshall is engaged to longtime girlfriend Lily (Alyson Hannigan), while Ted is dating local newswoman Robin (Cobie Smulders). But because the show is narrated by the Ted of the future (voiced, for some reason, by Bob Saget, who sounds nothing like Radnor), we know that Robin isn’t destined to be the mother of the title.

The most important member of the cast, though, doesn’t belong to a couple — proudly. That would be Barney (Neil Patrick Harris, who had better get an Emmy nomination for this year or I’m going to make some trouble), a designer suit-clad cad who delights in introducing new slogans and social constructs into the world.

In the first season, he invented The Lemon Law, which would allow either party to walk out on a first date within the first five minutes if it’s clear there’s no chemistry; when the idea spread enough that a woman actually used it on him, his only regret was that he hadn’t named it Barney’s Law.