How I Met Your Mother hits hot with season six

When CBSs How I Met Your Mother premiered back in 2005, it didn’t make much of a splash. A sitcom about a bunch of 20-something friends living, laughing and loving in New York City? Puh-leeze. Nothing was going to top NBC’s beloved Friends, which, at that point, was barely cold in its grave.

Flash-forward five years, where How I Met Your Mother is hitting heavy at its 8 p.m. Monday night time slot (it also runs in syndication on Lifetime ALL THE TIME).

It has become one of life’s simple joys, a solid half-hour at MacLaren’s Bar with sadsack architect Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) adorable wacky couple Marshall (Jason Segal) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan), strong-willed hottie Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) and, best of all, womanizing wonder Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris).

Season six started out just like all the others, with Ted on a nonstop search to find his wife. He’s also still the architect in charge of designing the new headquarters for Goliath National Bank — where both Marshall and Barney work — and, while checking out the site GNB has designated. meets Zoey (Jennifer Morrison), who is crusading to save the building’s original structure. Sparks fly. Surprise.

Marshall and Lily, on the other hand, are trying their damndest to make a little Marshall/Lily, which lends itself to lots of babymaking gags and similar shenanigans.

Barney, post-Season five relationship and breakup with Robin, is back to his sex-crazed ways, successful suiting up far and wide. He recently accepted a self-set challenge to win a woman over while acting like a cranky toddler, a feat most entertaining to watch.

On a more serious note, Barney discovered the true identity of his father while ransacking the Natural History Museum with Robin, a plot point that will likely pop up again later on in the season.

Robin hasn’t had a real steady plotline this season, save for pining over ex co-anchor/boyfriend Don. However, this week’s episode went on another blast into Robin’s mysterious Canadian past, Remember Robin Sparkles, Robin’s alternate teen pop-star sensation identity? She made a comeback after Barney found an old tape of Robin’s TV show, Space Teens, in which she and her BFF, Jessica Glitter (Nicole Scherzinger of Pussycat Dolls fame), solve mysteries using math problems and some pretty silly sexual innuendo.

Also, Alan Thicke played the Space Commander. And they sang a song called, “Two Beavers are Better Than One”, and danced around in skintight dresses with stuffed beavers. It was some pretty brilliant television.

How I Met Your Mother can feel pretty gimmicky at times, what with the framing premise — that Old Ted (Bob Saget) is telling his children the story of, um, how he met their mother — and the fact that each episode ends with an Important Life Lesson. Also, Ted’s unyielding need to find a wife gets tiring after a while. And really...laugh track? C’mon. It’s 2010. We don’t do that anymore.

But Ted’s emotions and canned laughter aside, there’s something soothing about watching a group of friends hang out, have some beers and have fun. So suit up, and check it out.