How I Met Your Mother: The Latest Show I Will Try to Get You to Watch

Each of you, if you have souls, are secretly waiting for that ONE SHOW to come back from the writer's strike--whether it's The Office, or Ugly Betty, or [SHUDDER] even Boston Legal. My secret show was How I Met Your Mother, which returned yesterday in a brilliantly timed St. Paddy's day episode.

I know you're all secretly relieved we get a little more new TV before summer, and those of us who invest in DVRs have not been getting our money's worth. So to pay back in karma this proverbial groundhog running back into its hole, I command that you all watch a yet another well-written, critically acclaimed, awesomely acted show that no one watches: How I Met Your Mother.

I know you all don't want to watch it, because it's a sitcom, and the sitcom was proclaimed dead around the time that According to Jim and The King of Queens became popular. But it wasn't dead--remember overlooked Arrested Development? And remember how you regret not watching that show when it was on? Well, now is your chance to make up for that. If, anything, it's got:
* Free episodes online.
* adorable Jason Segel (recently hired to write the next Muppets movie)
* Alyson Hannigan (aka Willow).
* Bob Saget in the Daniel Stern narration role.
* Neil Patrick Harris on The Price Is Right (pre–Drew Carey)
* Neil Patrick Harris playing Patrick Swayze's role in the "c'mere, loverboy" scene of Dirty Dancing.
*Neil Patrick Harris' abs. No, seriously


In fact, the only caveat I have about HIMYM is its laugh track. Though I hardly notice it anymore, it adds a campy quality that the show doesn't need. Though it does harken back to Seinfeld, which had a laugh track and was the only other show with such great New York specific lines as Barney's already infamous area code break down:

She might dress like she's 718, act like she's 212, but trust me, she's 516. Oh, and her husband, letting her out alone on St. Paddy's Day? If that dude's not 973 I'm 347.

But whatever, I'm done spending my free time trying to convince a small, imaginary audience to watch a show for the sake of the art of television. If you don't believe me, at least watch it next week: It's Brtiney's primetime debut.