TV Talk: ‘How I Met Your Father’ returns with more romantic complications
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Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Sometimes it’s easy to get a recurring guest star back.
For “How I Met Your Father” (Hulu’s sequel series to the 2005-14 “How I Met Your Mother”), recurring guest star Josh Peck – he plays a character who may or may not be the father of the title — is often found on the soundstage next door filming Paramount+’s “iCarly” revival.
“We are in total agreement the more Josh the better,” said executive producer Issac Aptaker (“This is Us”) during a press conference earlier this month on the “Father” set during the Television Critics Association winter 2023 press tour. “Whenever he’s available, we pop him in, because he’s tremendous at this format. He grew up on a multi-cam stage, and I think it really shows.”
“He’s kind of the unofficial seventh member of the cast,” said “Father” actor Christopher Lowell (“Private Practice”). “We all get pumped when he shows up.”
“I mean, is he the dad?” teased “Father” star Hilary Duff.
When the first season of “How I Met Your Father” ended in March 2022, Sophie (Hilary Duff) slept with Jesse (Christopher Lowell), freaked out when he said, “I love you,” and left him, only to return later to find Jesse kissing his ex-girlfriend. Then Sophie ran into her Tinder date from the pilot, Ian (Daniel Augustin), at her art exhibition.
As season two begins with episodes dropping weekly starting Tuesday, the story picks up in the art gallery right where it left off.
“What happens between the first season and the second season is tremendous because we make something in a vacuum and then we put it out in the world and we see how it’s received and we take all of that with us into the second season,” said director Pamela Fryman, who also directed “How I Met Your Mother.” “We know more about what we’re doing. We know how to shoot the show. We know who our characters are. Everybody is more comfortable.”
But the characters may be less comfortable. Hilary Duff said her Sophie turns into “a sociopathic liar” in the second season.
“But she’s so kind and pure at the same time,” Duff said. “And it’s been really fun to expand on that, because in the first season, we were leaning towards that, but [this season] its taken to another level, her innocence, finding herself, doing things that are really out-of-character that embarrass herself about ways she’s acting.”
Executive producer Elizabeth Berger (“This is Us”) said after a show’s first season, the writers can better write with the voice of an actor and the actor’s particular talents in mind.
And while the first season had 10 episodes, there will be 20 episodes in season two.
“In season one, we felt like we have to really push this romantic mystery in every episode because we have such limited real estate,” Berger said. “This season, we have so much room to play and we can spend a lot of episodes just telling those really fun, you’re young, you’re in New York and you’re hanging with your best friend stories. And then we still have room to push our arcs forward.”
While the “How I Met Your Father” cast and producers sometimes sound eager to distance the show from “How I Met Your Mother,” they’re also willing to embrace the connection as evidenced by a certain guest appearance in the “Father” season premiere.
“I don’t think there’s ever a time where we’re walking through the set being like, ‘All right, but we got to get that Ted flavor into it,’” Lowell said. “It just feels so much like its own entity, which is crazy, because, literally, as we were walking out to come do this Q&A, there’s the design of this set from the original show back there, which is insane.”
Jesse and Sid (Suraj Sharma) of “Father” live in the apartment once occupied by Lily (Alyson Hannigan), Marshall (Jason Segel) and Ted (Josh Radnor) in “Mother.”
The “Father” season premiere also features Duff singing, although there was a scramble to decide on the song. Producers asked Duff to prepare two songs because they weren’t sure which one they would ultimately get the rights to use in the show.
“I think it cleared while you were singing it,” Aptaker said. “Didn’t we shoot two versions? Because we were waiting for the estate of whoever to get back to us.”