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    Here's How "How I Met Your Father" And "How I Met Your Mother" Are The Same — And Very, Very Different

    How does the new spin-off compare to the original? Let's take a look.

    The first two episodes of the highly anticipated show How I Met Your Father (HIMYF) dropped last week and, in my opinion, they did not disappoint.

    But, as I'm sure many others were also thinking ahead of the premiere, I was curious to see how the two shows would compare. Given that HIMYF was supposed to basically be a reverse revival of the show, I wondered if they would follow the same style of HIMYM.

    Then I figured, if I'm this interested in how the two shows compare so far, there are probably others that want to know, too! While I only had the first two episodes of the new show to go off of, I found tons of little (and big) similarities and almost as many differences. Oftentimes, the two sort of overlapped.

    The twists and turns of How I Met Your Mother are intricately planned and fantastically executed. The inside jokes, the game of catch-up the writers force the audience to play throughout, and the background moments that always come back around are part of what made HIMYM so intriguing and wonderful. It seems the team behind HIMYF, which includes the same director from the original show, definitely carried a lot of those traditions over. The show felt familiar, had me laughing, and made me want to continue watching to find out what will happen - just like HIMYM. But at the same time, they made this new show completely, well, new! 

    Warning: Spoilers below!

    The first and most obvious difference is also somewhat of a similarity: the leads!

    Ted from HIMYM on the left and Sophie from HIMYF on the right

    Just as in HIMYM, HIMYF starts out by showing us that their lead is incredibly similar in many ways, although she's definitely not meant to be a carbon copy of Ted in female form.

    I was curious to see who would be playing Hillary Duff's future (present? it's complicated) kids in HIMYF because, as any HIMYM fan knows, Ted's love story is told from the future where he forces his kids to sit and listen to the long, long tale.

    Ted's kids from HIMYM sitting on their living room couch

    The big twist that the How I Met Your Father team put on this storytelling style was made clear from the opening shot of episode one: we get to see the narrator, but not the kid being forced to listen to her story.

    Kim Cattrall as Sophie in HIMYF smiling at the camera

    Same but also wildly different: The friend group (and how it comes to be).

    The cast of HIMYM poses for a promotional shot through a window

    Also in episode one, we're introduced to the final member of their little original crew: a guy named Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris) who gives off the strongest playboy vibes possible.

    That overly-flirty behavior is actually what ends up leading to the addition of the "outsider" to the group — a woman named Robin who Barney chats Ted up to before forcing him to talk to her in the bar they're always hanging out in.

    To try and remedy it, Ted figures he can make a grand romantic gesture — a keystone of his personality and something we'll see in HIMYF, too.

    Robin and Ted in HIMYM admire a blue french horn on the wall

    In episode two, Ted throws not one, not two, but three parties in attempt to get Robin to come through so he can try again with her. Spoiler: he fails, and she's not interested in the same things as him, anyway.

    The cast of HIMYM does a group cheers with mugs of beer

    So, does the formation of the group in How I Met Your Father come about in the same way? Definitely not. But there are absolutely similarities in the general storyline of the first two episodes that lead to that formation.

    So it may not be exactly the same as the trio that lives together in HIMYM, but we do have a couple who are super into each other and a single person living together in NYC.

    To get to her 88th Tinder date, Sophie hops in an Uber with a male driver and his friend riding along in the passenger seat. They chit chat the whole drive while Sophie charges her phone and we learn some details about these guys we're pretty sure are going to become main characters in the show and in the group.

    Then, Sophie's big romantic date falls wayyy short of her expectations: he's a great guy BUT he's moving to Australia that very night. Apparently, he just had to see her before he left.

    Ian from HIMYF explaining he's moving away

    Remembering the name of the bar that Sid owns (and where they said they hang out all the time), Sophie, Valentina, and Charlie race over to it to make the phone swap.

    Marshall and Lily (left) and Sid and Hannah (right) getting engaged on their respective shows

    Upon seeing he's sent her a photo of his boarding with all of his flight information, though, Sophie decides that she needs to go to the airport to make (you guessed it) a grand romantic gesture. And just like the crew supports Ted's in HIMYM, the newly forming crew (Valentina, Charlie, Jesse, Sid, and Ellen) egg her on and even go with her to the airport!

    Episode two of How I Met Your Father is where the hodge-podge group really starts to form. Charlie needs friends in America and Sophie needs a good old-fashioned night on the town to get her mind off Ian, so she and Valentina ask Jesse and Sid to go to a club with them (where Sid has the most fun of them all).

    Sophie clears the air with Jesse, Valentina and Charlie make up, Ellen had a fantastic night unsuccessfully hitting on women, and Sid had a pretty good time despite his fiancee not being there (she had to leave after the proposal to get back to work in LA).

    While the gang in How I Met I Your Father is certainly quite different than that of How I Met Your Father, we followed some similar twists and turns along the way. Let's discuss.

    Let's talk about the one gigantic similarity that cannot be ignored (and that, if you've seen both shows, you've probably been waiting for me to bring up): THE APARTMENT.

    The HIMYM apartment (top) and the HIMYF apartment (bottom) turn out to be the same one.

    SO much of the original show (HIMYM) takes place in that apartment. It was a welcome bit of familiarity when the cast of HIMYF walked in there at the end of episode one, even though it's not the main lead and her BFF living in it.

    They're young, they're hopeless, most of them are in or looking for love in some way or another, and they're going to go on a wild ride for sure.

    What did you think of the first episodes of HIMYF? Let us know in the comments.

    Don’t miss Sam Claflin in the new rom com Book of Love from BuzzFeed Studios, coming to Amazon Prime Video February 4th and Sky Cinema February 12th.

    Sam Claflin and Verónica Echegui standing on a street below the film's title