Was a funny show until Barney and Robyn got engaged, but really lost the plot when the Jennifer Love Hewitt wannabe character was introduced as "The Mother". Right from the start the whole "How I Met Your Mother" idea was stupid. It was a very funny show on its own. It hit the spot that Friends tried so hard to but missed every time.
shareI thought the mother character was completely nailed. Except for her, you know, dying :(
shareIt hit the spot that Friends tried so hard to but missed every time.
I don't see it necessarily as "jumping the shark". I would say the show had a couple of seasons too much, though. I think seven, or even six seasons would have been enough.
The last couple of seasons have too much filler, and sometimes, bad filler. Because if we're honest, every season has tons of filler episodes, meaning episodes in which the story doesn't progress at all. The thing is during the first five seasons, most of these episodes were actually funny (e.g. How I Met Everyone Else in season 3, Say Cheese in season 5 and many others).
In the last couple of seasons there are a lot of stories that are utterly boring, and the characters became really annoying. Season 9 was the final straw in terms of crappiness. I mean, spending a whole season in a wedding that the writers knew wasn't going to work anyway? Just dumb.
I always thought Ted was going to met "the mother" during the last couple of seasons and we would have gotten to see them grow as a couple from then on. I wouldn't have minded too much if the show had had the same ending if we had gotten to see more of the mother. Except Tracy only appeared on 25 episodes (and in most of those episodes for only a couple of minutes), and Ted was the last person in the gang to even met her!