'How I Met Your Mother' Season 9 Plan: How Everyone Else Met the Mother Before Ted

We may have finally met How I Met Your Mother's infamous title character, but it looks like Ted is going to have to hold a bit longer to meet her himself. According to a TVLine report, CBS has confirmed that HIMYM's ninth and final season will "span the wedding weekend and just the wedding weekend." Yes, we may have finally been introduced to Cristin Milioti as The Mother, but there's still a good chunk of the journey left to go.

Assuming HIMYM airs 24 episodes next season (as it did this season), the show will spend a great deal of time focusing on the 56 hours leading up to Barney and Robin's wedding. Of course, this was never a problem for a show like Fox's 24, but how will HIMYM handle this? TVLine also tells us that Season 9 will focus on "how each character, before Ted, meets the mother. So, they each meet her independently before he does." HIMYM has never had trouble delivering episodes full of multi-layered storytelling, so this plan for Season 9 really shouldn’t be too hard for the showrunners to pull off.

Are we really going to devote an entire season to Ted not actually meeting The Mother, you ask? Couldn't that time be better spent having the two meet and then focusing on their courtship, engagement and eventual marriage, you suggest? Well, after years of watching Ted date (and even almost marry) women who weren't The Mother, it would be awesome to see Ted in the relationship that finally worked. In fairness to the show’s brain trust, the title of the series has always been "How I Met Your Mother," not "How I Dated Your Mother," "How I Proposed to Your Mother" or even "How I Married Your Mother." Ted’s story has always been taking us to moment he meets his future wife. As long as HIMYM delivers that, the show has kept its promise to its fans.