Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me About How I Met Your Father?

The other day I was reading about Greta Gerwig and her achievement as the fifth woman in history nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. In my mind I couldn’t quite pinpoint which film or TV show made her first become famous, so I went on her Wikipedia page. Scrolling through her filmography something caught my eye. 2014, How I Met Your Dad, Sally, Unsold CBS pilot. As the biggest hardcore How I met your Mother fan, how could I have never heard of this spin-off before? So I clicked on the link and quickly discovered that there had not only been that one attempt at a spin-off, oh no. There was an entire section on proposed HIMYM spin-offs.

It all started on November 15^th 2013, when CBS announced that they would launch a woman-centric variation of the sitcom starring Greta Gerwig as the protagonist Sally, voiced by Meg Ryan as future Sally. The pilot was made, though in May 2014 CBS decided not to pick up the series for the 2014-15 season as they didn’t like the first episode, and executive producers Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, the original producers of HIMYM, refused to reshoot it. Unfortunately, the pilot was never aired or released (neither leaked), but one can find the script for that first episode. Basically, the story is about Sally, an unemployed 27-year-old married to Gavin, at least for the first 5 minutes of the episode. Then they split up, because Sally is too immature for Gavin, who doesn’t like her spending crazy nights out with her best friend Juliet. So, Sally turns to her older brother Danny and his husband Todd for a place to stay. Meanwhile, Juliet sets Sally up for a date with her co-worker Frank, the nerdy but hot IT guy. The date goes horribly wrong; Sally runs away to go back to Gavin – not to tell him she still loves him, but for closure. The episode ends with the gang at the bar, cutting open a stolen champagne bottle with a sword. Frank approaches Sally one last time, but she turns him down and they both agree to be just friends. As the voice over from future Sally starts, you know there are only two ways this can end. Either they do the exact same thing as they did with HIMYM, and Frank turns out to be the Robin of the situation, and therefore not the Dad in question, or they play with our expectations and tell us that Frank is actually the Dad. Since Sally turned him down, how will he manage to win her over? But no, they do the things you would expect and that they did for 9 seasons already: “And that, kids, is the story of how I met your Uncle Frank.”

After this cheesy first attempt at a spin-off, Thomas and Bays stated that they had both moved on from the project, but CBS continued to hound them, and in 2016 the announcement was made of a retitled How I Met Your Father. Known in the fandom circles as the first attempt, it saw new writers and the original producers as mere co-executive producers. The entire project, however, didn’t even last 3 months as the writers moved on to This is Us. The so-called second attempt is where it gets interesting. Strikingly, it is already referred to as an attempt, thought it hasn’t been cancelled yet, after 7 months of it being announced. No pilot so far, and there isn’t any info besides that they won’t use previously developed ideas. Thomas and Bays are once more tied to the project as executive producers and the writer, Alison Bennett, doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

One question still stands. Do we need a HIMYM spin-off? I don’t think so. A spin-off would be just a money maker for CBS. After the finale of the original series disappointed so many long-time viewers, I don’t believe there’s the need to ruin the franchise even further with a corny remake. But will I watch it if they manage to make it? Absolutely yes.