‘How I Met Your Father’ Desperately Needs a Barney

From How I Met Your Mother’s first episode, there was something special about Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris). He was vulgar, sexist, and problematic, sure. But he was also instantly funny, disarmingly charming, and embodied the unearned confidence this show exhibited from the pilot on. Barney being Barney gave HIMYM the runway it needed to find its own voice. The comedy could fumble with plots and characters, but audiences would keep watching to see what would come out of this cartoon character’s mouth. And if the poorly defined How I Met Your Father doesn’t suit up soon, there’s not going to be a reason to recommend it to anyone.

It’s difficult to establish any freshman sitcom. But How I Met Your Father has a particularly obvious confidence problem. When its predecessor, How I Met Your Mother, first premiered, it knew who its main characters were. Ted (Josh Radnor) was the hopeless romantic. Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segel) were the codependent couple. Robin (Cobie Smulders) was the cool career girl. And Barney? Barney was the suit-loving clown you couldn’t stop watching.

There was always an addictiveness to Barney. Of course, there were his disturbing and cringe-worthy comments about women, which have not withstood the test of time. But there was a mystery about him. HIMYM‘s pilot revealed not one but two of his catchphrases (“Suit up!” and “Haaaaave you met my friend, Ted?”), that this man made his best friend by approaching him at a urinal, that he played laser tag with literal children, and that he kept a blog. Barney immediately felt like his own fully-formed person, and that person was an endless yarn ball of mysteries and one-liners you needed him to explain. He was the believably fun weirdo at the bar who could always be counted on to distract audiences while the CBS sitcom ironed out its wrinkles.

Was Robin too icy? Was Ted a secret creep? Were Marshal and Lily actually a good couple or were they just scared to be alone? Who cared? As long as How I Met Your Mother had Barney around to describe his progressively elaborate strategies to get laid, it didn’t matter. He made the show funny enough that the writers had time to figure out the rest.

How I Met Your Father doesn’t have that sort of built-in safety net. In fact, it barely seems to know who its characters are. Three episodes in and we know that Sophie (Hilary Duff) is a hopeless romantic but only really when the plot calls for it. Her best friend Valentina (Francia Raisa) is a party girl who barely seems to party and who immediately tries to settle down. Sid (Suraj Sharma) is so dully responsible, he feels like this show’s dad. Charlie (Tom Ainsley) and Ellen (Tien Tran) are one-dimensional riffs on the same word: clueless. As for Jesse (Christopher Lowell), who knows what he is? Jesse fits the average New York dude archetype so perfectly, he’s devoid of any sort of identifiable personality trait. That’s not a crew you want to watch.

For the most part, this is not an acting problem. It’s obvious that everyone on set is trying their best with the material available. Duff works hard to ensure that her charm carries How I Met Your Father through its dullest moments. Similarly, Sharma is far funnier than his wet blanket of a character. Sid’s sex toy freakout, which somehow involves The Daily, has been one of the best moments in this new comedy so far. But whereas the original gave us a friends group that started its first episode running through in-jokes and flashbacks, this new gang feels like it can barely stand.

What How I Met Your Mother really needs is a distraction, someone silly and ridiculous enough that most viewers won’t notice that this show has no idea what it wants to be. There is hope. Charlie’s trust fund ditziness has been responsible for a couple of solid jokes. Likewise, Tran’s Ellen feels like she hasn’t even scratched the surface of her potential. But without a Barney all that’s left is another skippable show about 20 to 30-something friends.

Watch How I Met Your Father on Hulu