When a late December report suggested that “How I Met Your Mother” was on the verge of being renewed for a ninth season, I began speculating once again on when Carter Bays and Craig Thomas intend to introduce us to Ted Mosby’s future wife, and came to the conclusion that they’d rather that not happen until the very end of the series.
The renewal still isn’t official, but CBS president Nina Tassler told reporters at press tour today that, “I will be very happy to report, in a very few days, I believe, that things will be resolved. We’re very confident and excited that things will all work out. Almost everything is completed.”
And comments she made about the pending renewal suggested that, no, we will not be meeting the Mother anytime soon.
After the session, I asked whether storytelling decisions had come up in the renewal talks, or if it was just about locking down all the actors.
“They had two plans in place,” Tassler said of Bays and Thomas, “which is 1)what they would do if we resolve this year, and 2)what they would do if we came back next year. So we’re probably going to sit down and talk to them, probably, in about a month.”
As the scrum continued, Tassler insisted, “I’m feeling very very confident” of renewal. “I’m feeling good!”
And is there a chance the show could continue for a tenth season or longer, given the ratings?
Tassler said, “We talked about this the other day: do people watch the show beyond knowing the Mother? I bet there are a lot of people that would continue to watch after that. But it would be the end as designed by Carter and Craig, and I wouldn’t want to even attempt to undermine whatever their creative goal is.”
This pretty clearly suggested that “the end as designed by Carter and Craig” involves taking the title of the series literally, but when another reporter pointed this out to Tassler, she doubled back and insisted, “I’m not telling you when you’re going to meet the Mother.”
And so we wait… and wait… and wait some more. And hope that things will be funny until we get there.