Alyson Hannigan

How I Met Your Mother has become one of the legitimate comedy hits of this current season, pulling in solid ratings on Monday nights and a fair amount of online buzz (heck, Ryan slaves away every Monday night to give you a recap; Sarah recaps last night’s episode).

It’s a pretty funny show, with a very likeable cast — Alyson Hannigan and Neil Patrick Harris are the standouts — but it sort of seems familiar, doesn’t it? In fact, it seems like we saw a show very much like this eleven years ago... when it was called Friends.

Think about it for a second: both shows had pretty people in their late twenties hanging out in New York. Both shows have people living in unrealistic apartments and wearing expensive clothes. Both shows have people making up cute little phrases (how is "cockamouse" any different than anything Chandler uttered?). There’s even some sexual tension, or at least the promise of sexual tension; if you think Robin and Ted aren’t going to hook up again, even for a night or two, you haven’t been watching sitcoms. Oh, and people are coupled up, as well: Chandler and Monica, meet Marshall and Lilly.

Even some of the characterizations are the same: Barney is a smarter version of Joey(but is about as successful with women as Chandler); Ted is a less whiny version of Ross. There is no equivalent to Marshall, I will admit, but his personality hasn’t come through yet. Oh, and there’s no Phoebe equivalent either, which is a good thing because Mother doesn’t need one; five oh-so-adorable people are quite enough.

I think it’s in the writing; it’s a little too cute and quippy, too full of snappy comebacks, catchphrases, and hangdog pathos (most of that reserved for the Ted character), a template for comedy that went out of style with Y2K, or at least that’s what I thought.

Am I nuts or is Mother following the Friends template a little too closely? Let me know in the comments.