The beloved CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” ended 5 months ago after 9 long seasons, yet I have just finished watching the show last week since the last season has just recently come out on Netflix. The show tells the story of Ted Mosby, played by Josh Radnor, an architect who lives in New York, tellings his daughter and son the story of how he met their mother. Although that is the premise of the show most episodes don’t focus on that but rather the great times he spent with his four best friends Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel), Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), and Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris). As the viewer we get to go through all the good times and all the bad times with the group.

If you like comedy this is definitely the show for you, their are plenty of jokes jammed into these 22 minute episodes. If you like more serious shows you may also like the show because at times the show can get serious for example in Ted’s journey to find his wife, or throughout Marshall and Lily’s marriage. The only reason you would not like “How I Met Your Mother” (HIMYM) is if you like a show were in every episode the plot advances, in HIMYM their are plenty of filler episodes which are hilarious of course but do not really advance the plot in anyway. I think that is what made so many people like it the fact that not every episode had to have serious aspect of their lives but could just be telling a funny story about the group. Like the time they had to go on an information freeze out so that they would not find out the score of the super bowl until the end of the day.

The creators of the show Carter Bays and Craig Thomas made a great call on the setup of the show. Since the all the episodes were told through flashbacks by Future Ted, played by Bob Saget (voice only), the show was able to have a lot of flexibility in terms of the plot. Although the creators began to take advantage of the flashbacks later on in the show and began to get lazy with plot lines; it was still a great call to make the show that way. Part of what made it so good is the we as the viewer really felt like we were going the stories of Ted’s life.

An aspect of the show that impressed me the most was how many cultural references they were able to jam into those episodes, whether it be from Star Wars or Scooby Doo, the show was able to incorporate things that were happening in the world at that time into the show. Like for example for one episode they had Jorge Garcia (Hurley from Lost) right after Lost ended, and he apparently had the curse of the blitz where whenever he left the room something amazing happened. It was cameos and references to modern culture like this that made show have a wide variety of viewers. Because of all these cultural references as the viewer you could also see how much the times were changing as the show went on. For example when the show started in 2005 all the character had flip phones and when it ended they were all using IPhones.

What was most impressive about the show was how good the characters are. Barney Stinson is the best character on the show and its not really that close. That does not mean that the other characters are not good its just that Barney was so well portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris. What was most impressive about Neil Patrick Harris was that he was portraying a womanizer even though he in real life is gay, and he was able to take on the character so well. Literally everything that came out of his mouth was hilarious.

It was just recently made clear that David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca knew how the show would end since the first season nine years ago. They knew because they recorded all the talks with future ted in 2005. So in 2014 the last season we were still seeing footage from the first season of HIMYM. It is obvious why the creators decided to record it all since the beginning. How could Ted be telling a short story but his kids are going from little kids to high schoolers in the progress it just would not make sense. This also limited how the show could end which is why the ending was a little disappointing.

Part of what made the show so great is the chemistry the five were able to create amongst themselves and how likable all the characters were. Even in the first season you could see the casting for these characters were on point. This was especially clear with the chemistry Cobie Smulders and Josh Radnor; it really made Robin and Ted’s relationship feel real Usually when a show first starts the actors don’t have such great chemistry but on “How I Met Your Mother” (HIMYM) they went off with a bang and the characters just kept getting better and better. Usually with shows that have so many seasons the quality tends to drop off after about four or five but with HIMYM all the seasons are extremely well written and hilarious. Although the finale was disappointing that should not stop anyone from watching the show because the last season was still great and I don’t think there was a single ending the creators could have made where the fans were not at least a bit disappointed.

Finally if you like comedy there is no question you should watch this show it is one of the Top 10 Sitcoms of all time in my opinion and is an overall great show. The shows creators made some great calls from the casting, to the set up of the show, and even to put many cultural references in. All these things is what made it the great show it was. In the words of the great Barney Stinson this show is truly, “legen...wait for it...dary”.