[TV] How I Met Your Mother: Season 3

At the end of a long work day, a good sitcom is easier to tune into versus a heavy drama. And I totally love drama shows, don't get me wrong - the more complex, the better. But when you spend your working day crunching numbers, crafting proposals and all that good stuff, it's hard to find the mental acuity and just the plain energy to process the more convoluted plots such drama shows have.

How I Met Your Mother isn't a drama. It's a lovely little comedy that plays out like a romantic comedy movie somehow stretched into a TV series. It has its ups and downs in a formula that kind of reminds you of older sitcoms like Friends and yet still not quite like that either. It's still a unique comedic experience.

And as Tobie and I work through the rest of the show several years later than everyone else, there's still a lot to enjoy about it. And thus we continue to move forward, finding some limited degree of escape in this show while we decongest our brains and try to forget all that had been stressing us out at our respective jobs.

Synopsis: How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. It ran on CBS from 2005 to 2014 across nine seasons.

The second season ended on a rather high note given Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segel) have finally gotten married. But there's also the alternative little twist that Ted (Josh Radnor) and Robin (Cobie Smuthers) had ended their relationship some time before the wedding since they didn't want to distract folks with their own little drama. Thus the season properly begins with Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) celebrating Ted's return to the dating world and Robin with an exotic new Argentinean boyfriend, Gael (Enrique Iglesias).

And of course we also have Lily and Marshall getting used to married life. One of the major plot points in this season involves Marhsall trying to find a job, something that was really stressed in the episode "I'm Not That Guy." There he's wooed by Jefferson Coatsworth (John Cho), who represents a major law firm, but one who isn't necessarily all that "good". Especially since his dream to become an environmental lawyer and fight the good fight. And then you also have Lily and Marshall trying to find a home for themselves, something which results in a humorous twist in the episode "Dowisetrepla".

The prior season felt rather Barney-focused in many ways, and things were nicely more spread out this time around. Key episodes that I really enjoyed include"Spoiler Alert" when Ted's new girlfriend points out annoying habits that everyone in the group has. It doesn't sound like much when you write it down like that, but it's just hard to explain the wonderful glass-breaking sound every time one of those traits were mentioned. And of course there's "Slapsgiving" which could have been like any other Thanksgiving episode, but it also had the promise of one of the infamous slaps as part of the narrative.

The truly major arc this time around is Ted getting involved with his doctor, Stella (Sarah Chalke). I was never totally sold on her being a possible match for Ted given the lack of build-up or proper development, but really this is more about Ted being a sap who is eager to get into a relationship at the drop of a hat. It was an interesting bit so since it revealed a lot more about how far Ted might go just to get into a truly long term relationship. At least Britney Spears was a fun cameo in this particular story arc.

This fourth season of How I Met Your Mother was an interesting step forward for a lot of character development efforts for the most part but also wasn't necessarily quite as over the top funny as other seasons. Still, there was a lot to enjoy here. Thus the show gets 4 funny facts about Robin's life in Canada out of a possible 5.