Fall TV review: How I Met Your Mother

Note: Because I started the blog just after fall previews, I'm going to be doing a "review so far..." type of things for my favorite shows over the next couple weeks and then start reviewing and recapping regularly.

How I Met Your Mother is one of the husband and I's favorite shows to watch together. We both enjoy it and find it funny so it's not like, say, Pretty Little Liars where I'm enthralled and he just makes fun of it the entire time (leading to the great "Just go in another room dammit" summit of May 2011 and the subsequent "If I choose to watch your stupid, ridiculous show with you, I will keep my snarky comments to a minimum or leave the room" treaty of July 2011).

Seven years in and we still really enjoy the show for the most part. But I have to ask: Does anyone actually care anymore who the mother is?

For me, Ted is by far the most boring part of the show. I couldn't care less at this point about his journey to find love. I'm dying to know who Barney marries and I really, really hopes it is Robin and I think I'll be seriously disappointed if it isn't. Marshall and Lily are probably my favorite married couple on television and as a mom myself I'm interested to see how they handle parenthood.

But Ted? I am not even the slightest bit curious after seven freaking years of waiting who his wife will be. And I have no clue who she is! I can only imagine how his poor children, who already know who their mother is, must feel. I bet all they think when he's rambling on is "God, I will never ask my father another question, ever."

And as we all know now the actual answer to the question of "How did you meet our mother, Dad?" is "I met her at a wedding." That's it. That's the answer.

But I love the show so I'm grateful for Ted's long-windiness even if it means I have to put up with boring Ted in the midst of all the awesome.

But I would like to assure you: When my daughter one day asks me how I met her father, the story will go "We met in college then started dating a few years later." It will not include every single man I dated in the meantime and ever last drunken and/or sexual exploit of my 20s. I'd like to keep her therapy bills to a minimum,thank you very much.

So far this season, I'm really liking where the story is going. I like the growth of Barney's character and seeing him figure out what he really wants out of his life. I'm enjoying Robin's journey of realizing that she's in love with Barney but trying to figure out how to respect his decisions. I even like seeing Lily and Marshall navigate the early stages of their first pregnancy, despite my long-standing belief that in TV shows and The Sims, babies ruin everything.

How are you liking the season so far? Want to share your theories about who the mother is? My current favorite is that she's Barney's half-sister - which explains why she would be at the wedding.