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Binge Watch Guide: 'How I Met Your Mother'

Binge Watch Guide is a blog series to lead you through the many available series for streaming.

Time Commitment: Medium-High

“How I Met Your Mother” had its grand finale on March 31, 2014, with a total of nine seasons. Each season has approximately 20 episodes. Yes, it sounds like a lot, but each episode is only 20 minutes long. You will breeze through a season in a few days. If you’re looking for something to help you procrastinate, this is perfect. The entire show is on Netflix, so hustle!

Most Interesting Character: Barney Stinson

Always clad in smart suits, insanely rich and witty — that’s Barney. Plus he has a serious commitment problem and will come up with ingenious strategies to have sex with all the fish out in the ocean.

He’s also extremely clingy to his friends and just won’t let them stay in a serious relationship. All the tactics he uses to sabotage Ted and Robin’s relationship is really obnoxious, but adorable.

You will never, and I mean never, be able to hate him.

As the seasons progress, you’ll see Barney grow as a lover (or does he? Find out by watching the show) and a person as more and more about him is unveiled. For example, you’ll finally learn what he does for a living, what his real name is and — wait for it — his “legendary” relationships.

via GIPHY

The Good: The entire show is narrated by future Ted in the year 2030 to his son and daughter. So all the flashbacks take into account his struggle to maintain the good daddy status.

He’ll refrain from using derogatory terms, skip some excessively sensual scenes, tell a story once, and again from another perspective. Most importantly, there is a twist ending that you must wait out. DO NOT SPOIL YOURSELF.

The Bad: You can’t ignore the similarities of the setup to “Friends.”

Best friends living in New York, falling in love, facing relationship fears, overcoming challenges, getting married, then breaking up again… The plot seems really cliche at times and you can’t help thinking that the writer was extensively inspired by the classic “Friends.”

Source: Untappedcities

Source: Buzzfeed

The Takeaway: This is really a feel-good show that’s perfect for a long day of studying and work. The idea of a father telling his children his romantic endeavor is in itself really sweet, which begs the question: “How did your dad meet your mom?”

If you liked this, consider watching this too: Obviously, “Friends.”

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