Why Hulu Canceled How I Met Your Father

No matter how you may feel about the ending of "How I Met Your Mother," there's no questioning the show had a successful nine-season run, and that most of it is infinitely rewatchable even more than a decade after it aired its final episode. The same, however, cannot be said about "How I Met Your Father," the sequel series that abruptly ended after just two seasons and 30 episodes on Hulu. Despite sharing a lot of similarities with the original series, it just didn't connect with audiences in the same way. But when it came to the official reason why "How I Met Your Father" was canceled, it all came down to the usual corporate jargon from streaming companies.

A report from Deadline confirmed in September 2023 that "How I Met Your Father" got the axe on account of "companywide streaming content cuts" at Hulu's parent company, Disney. The story didn't delve further into the specifics, but noted that two other comedy shows were canceled at the same time — the historical (but heavily fictionalized) "The Great" and another gender-flipped take on a popular series, "Doogie Kameāloha, M.D."

On the surface, this doesn't really tell us much about why "How I Met Your Father" met its end before it could even reveal who the father was. But in the lead-up to its cancellation, there were some signs pointing to the show having a short and unsatisfying run.

On paper, it isn't too surprising that "How I Met Your Father," despite some positive initial reviews, lasted just two seasons on Hulu. A look at Rotten Tomatoes shows that the series got a 34% critic score and a 64% audience score. Meanwhile, over on IMDb, the show received a middling average score of 5.7 out of 10. A closer look at those ratings also shows a lot of praise for Hilary Duff and Kim Cattrall, who respectively played the present-day and future versions of lead character Sophie. Unfortunately, the supporting players on "How I Met Your Father" were another story — multiple reviewers pointed out how the members of Sophie's friend group weren't as interesting or relatable as the mainstays on "How I Met Your Mother."

Indeed, there's a good reason why I never get tired of binge-watching "How I Met Your Mother" — from the get-go, you can see how believable the characters are as a friend group, and in most situations, it's easy to identify the Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), Robin (Cobie Smulders), or Ted (Josh Radnor) in your own circle of friends. On "How I Met Your Father," however, Sophie's friends feel a lot like millennial stereotypes with little depth, nuance, or relatability. Good luck finding someone you know who reminds you of Jesse (Christopher Lowell), who juggles work as a music teacher and Uber driver while also dealing with life as an internet lolcow.

Then again, "How I Met Your Father" can take solace in knowing it isn't the only 2020s sequel sitcom revolving around trope-y, stereotypical characters that ended after two seasons, as Netflix's "That '90s Show" was similarly canceled in 2024.